A Risk of Going Through a Doorway Is That It May Be Locked Shut Behind
by thejapanesemapletree
Summary: "You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it." (-Neil Gaiman, 'The Graveyard Book')
1. The Boy Near the Gravestones

**A/N:** I've only watched the first ten episodes of the anime, and here I am. Forgive me.

.

The house was silent.

No ticking clock, nor hum of air conditioner, nor settling of the earth made a sound. Everything remained quiet—and waiting.

The man moved like a shadow. Soundlessly, he surmounted the dark stairs, the black peace of the hallway disturbed ever so slightly as he crossed to the distant bedroom. The door was obtusely agape, and inside lied a couple nestled in their futon.

He stopped outside the door. He took a moment to note how they were placed: the woman, the mother, with her dark hair twined together like seafaring rope, and the father with his arms perched atop the blanket. A square of light from the uncurtained window almost cascaded across their unassuming faces.

He lifted his arms. Silently, and for no longer than a moment, green and black trendels unleashed from his fingers, finding their way around the heads of the mother and father. They wove into the couple's noses, darting out with what looked like ghost orbs in the colors of aquamarine and purple and pink. Satisfied, the trendels returned, and the man quashed the vibrate orbs between his palms. The fragile things gave away with a little death of stardust.

The man startled when an utterly pitiful noise came from beside the futon. There, lying unseen in the dark, was a baby, so newborn its face glowed like the moon. It fretted within the loneliness of its own futon.

He darted to quell the baby at once. More dark wisps unraveled from his hands as he covered the child's mouth, all the pain in its face melting into a sudden sleep. Any disruption in tranquilly was returned, and the parents slept on, unaware of the man in their bedroom or what he came to do.

It really had nothing to do with them. The man left them as they were, traveling instead to the room across the hall.

The room was as he expected it: unguarded, unremarkable, with anything suggesting it was a child's room tucked away or nonexistent. Only a single futon with a single person implied the place was anything at all.

The man walked astride the futon. The child within was mostly still, and looked like he had not misplaced a centimeter since his mother had tucked him in many hours ago. His breathing pitched his little chest at a steady rate.

The man watched for a moment. Then, he picked the child out of the futon and carried him out of the house without a single word.

.

"Yeah, I've got him."

The child awoke with cool, nighttime air brushing his skin, and he noted the strange, hurried motion of whoever had their arms around him. He watched curiously as the man snapped his cellphone closed and hid it away, his other arm returning to holding the child close to his chest. He also saw how the man had an evil mark across his face, although he couldn't have possibly known the twisted skin to be a scar.

In his haste, the man did not notice the child awaken. He was concentrated on escaping, and that perhaps was his downfall.

The child reached towards the man's face. And, with a single flash of light, the child was on the ground and the man was sent flying into a pile of trashcans.

.

Arataka Reigen was cursed to be mediocre.

He went to work, and he came home. He didn't expect to win the lottery (although he desperately hoped to), and didn't expect a woman to want to marry him anytime soon. He didn't eat nutritively, he wore plain clothes, and he went to bed too late every night. He wasn't special, and that was that.

Possibly the only interesting thing about him was that his family owned a graveyard. Reigen lived in the house his family also kept beside the graveyard, from back when they hired single groundskeepers instead of an outside company. Now, the only responsibility of the house's occupant was to open the graveyard gates before they went to work, and to lock them shut when they came home. Reigen fulfilled his duty with no exhaustion of grumbling.

On this particular, soon-to-be-eventful night, Reigen had found the inspiration within himself to read his collection of ghost stories for the umpteenth time. The twaddle of a late night show gave the room some needed noise, and the atmosphere of relaxation and unconcern was complete.

The turning of a page and sound of televised laughter combined briefly to make the oddest noise. The upset startled Reigen only momentarily, before he reasoned it to be nothing but an imaginative happening, or something of the sort. In any case, it did not bother him enough to disrupt his reading or make him move, so he remained firmly planted in the couch and tried to continue with his careless evening.

But he heard it again.

 _Giggling._

The events of about ten horror movies rolled through Reigen's mind. His limbs jerked against his conscious choice, and with a shout he went tumbling to the floor, the contents of his side table following suit. The pretty ceramics bowl he used to steam ramen hit him in a very unfortunate spot, and he had to spend agonizing moments fussing and holding the tender area in pain. When Reigen pulled his wits together enough to stand, he willed himself to the window, switching on the porch light and peeking out warily.

Nothing greeted him in his immediate yard. He almost had the time to be relieved, but another laugh from outside created a new wave of panic. It sounded like it was coming from the edge of the fence that separated his yard from the graveyard.

Reigen saw a white figure hunched near the edge of the fence. The sight of the ghostly color was all it took for him to zip away from the window. His breathing hitched, and he clutched at the wall he was pressed against.

That couldn't be a ghost…

…

Could it?

Reigen wasn't so distasteful or dismissive of the supernatural as many. In fact, if he wanted to admit it, the stuff interested him greatly, and that reminder soothed his fluttering heart.

He unpeeled from the wall. Puffing up with bravery that probably wasn't sincere, Reigen marched out the front door and across his yard, towards the thing huddled by the fence.

The figure wore all white. A dark head rested close to the knees pulled up to its chest, and hands covered the entirety of its face. It giggled, once, and opened the hands from its face, almost like it were playing a game with something unseen on the other side of the fence.

Reigen realized it wasn't a ghost at all: it was a little boy.

He froze out of sheer disbelief. The boy, who couldn't have been more than two, was barefoot with white pajamas grass-stained on his rump. His black hair was cut in a round shape that had made Reigen think his head was something sinister. The little boy giggled again and covered his face.

Reigen finally found his voice, "What are you doing?"

The boy paused his game. Reigen was not entirely sure the boy was not some evil spirit until he turned his face and Reigen saw only a bored, or unimpressed, expression—which was rather interesting on one so young.

"Playing."

He replied in an equally vapid tone. Clearly seeing Reigen as no interest and no threat, he returned to whatever was across the fence, the smile again gracing his face.

Reigen honestly had no idea what to say. Eventually, and clumsily, he decided to be more direct, and his clipped manner showed that.

"What are you doing here all by yourself?"

The boy again determined Reigen worth humoring. He looked back, a more thoughtful twinkle to his eyes.

"I don't know."

He expounded no more—and, really, what could be expected of a toddler? Reigen, fully exasperated, decided to scrape together some adult respectability. He had to take charge of the situation.

"Let's take you to the police station," Reigen offered in his best fatherly voice. "We can find your parents that way."

The boy appeared to mull over the prospect. Finding it satisfactory, he nodded.

"Okay."

Reigen had an awkward fumble of not knowing if he should hold the boy's hand. Whatever distance of contact was chosen for him as the boy made grabby hands to be picked up. A little unwilling, but also eager to move the process along, Reigen lifted the strange child who he at first thought was a ghost and who talked to nothingness into his arms.

"What's your name?" Reigen figured it beneficial to ask.

The boy had to think.

"Mob."

That's what everyone called him. That was his name, wasn't it?

As Reigen was going to ask a bewildered follow up about if that really was his name, a person pulled forth from the shadows of the street. His previous quietness was lost with the injured foot he dragged behind him, and Reigen was off-put by the deep shadow from his hoodie cloaking his appearance. He stopped just before the property line. If Reigen could do one thing, it was read people, and intuition told him at once that the man was not good news.

"You." The man wasted no time. "You caught me off-guard. Nice job, kid."

A husky bark from the man set a weird, conflicting mood. Mob cocked his head like a sparrow, not replying but also not understanding.

"You're pretty decent for a toddler."

The man stepped up into the yard. Reigen took that as his cue to work them both out of the situation he could feel was escalating, and he took a step back towards the safety of his house.

"Who-?"

Reigen never got to finish his sentence. In the place of any words, Mob raised his hand, a glowing aura twirling from his fingertips. The man, without even the notion of challenge, was shot across the street, landing headlong into the adjacent building with an explosion of bricks and mortar. Mob watched the scene lacking even so little as contentment. It was like he was batting away an insect.

Reigen's jaw hung ajar. He looked to the little boy in his arms, then to the unmoving man, and did so many times that his brain threatened to be bruised. Mob was patient enough to wait for Reigen to compose himself, and he wasn't fazed when he practically yelled.

"You have psychic powers?" Reigen cried in excitement (and maybe a little bit of fear).

Mob blinked in question. "What?"

Oh… of course he would be too young to know what that meant. Nevertheless, Reigen was practically feverish, sprouting all sorts of incomprehensible nonsense.

"I've always—like, all my life I've— "

Mob had enough of the babble. He firmly put his hand over Reigen's mouth, shushing him.

"Hush."

.

 **A/N:** If this gets any notion of being ~popular~, I might continue it, but don't expect much from my poor weary soul.


	2. The Mysterious Case of Mob

**A/N:** Now that I've read the manga, you can expect appearances from characters like Serizawa and Mogami!

(Just don't expect all characters to get a spot, goodness...)  
N Mob is supposed to age gradually throughout the chapters, FYI.

.

For all extensive purposes: Mob did not exist.

He did physically, of course, and Reigen knew that by the ache in his arms from having to carry him all the way to the police station. His haste to get inside caused the door to suck open with a bang, and the noise startled the officer on duty. It complimented nicely Reigen's march to the front and his firm hand on the reception desk.

He meant business.

Reigen ordered the process along so fast that even the lead deputy was impressed. Reigen was clear, and authoritative, and he had officers out to his house to look for the man Mob had thrown into a building in mere minutes. However, he did not think it tactful at the time to mention Mob's little talent to strangers he wanted to trust him, and instead waited with a disposition like steel while they searched the residential records for Mob's parents.

It was only then that Reigen noticed he had not yet put the boy down.

Mob did not seem to mind. He had not spoken since Reigen had asked his name, even with all the excitement around him, and did not protest when Reigen moved them to a bench. Reigen collapsed rather melodramatically—sigh and all—onto the creaky wooden furniture. Mob perched like a little bird on Reigen's lap with his legs folded in his arms, and Reigen took the effort to lift his head and quirk an eyebrow at his residing companion.

"You don't have to stay on me, you know."

Mob nodded once and spoke to confirm he in fact did know.

"I know."

Reigen allowed himself a short laugh at Mob's bluntness before tossing his head back over the rear of the bench.

After a while, the researching officer informed them that she could not find anything about Mob. When prompted to give his family name, he couldn't say, and he was so young that no one could be disappointed that he did not remember. And it wasn't a problem yet: surely, in the morning, when everyone got up, a family would notice their missing baby and come looking for him straight away.

Surely.

.

"Mob."

The boy had himself curled into a perfect sphere, and he didn't seem content on moving.

"Mob, I have to go open the graveyard gate."

Mob unfurled from his ball slowly. He sat up like a radio antenna stilled from flicking, his hair mussed up one side and his eyes blinking against the new pale light of sunrise. Reigen nudged his shoulder gently.

"You have to get off me."

Mob stared down at the little spot on Reigen's chest he had made so warm with a blank expression. Then, he yawned, rubbing his eyes with both hands.

"Make Tome-san do it."

Reigen cocked his head as he watched Mob kindly slide to the floor.

"Who's Tome-san?"

Mob watched the wall as if it would give him the answer he sought.

"I don't know."

Was Mob capable of giving a concise response? It didn't seem so.

Reigen left Mob with a promise to be back. The police search party had returned hours before with the news that the only thing to be found near Reigen's home were broken pieces of the building across the street and a-kinda-almost-a-head-and-top-body shape in the wall. Reigen was half-afraid the man was hiding in his house to kill him, but no assassin with a knife jumped at him when he opened the door, so he felt he could be at ease. (Or was that just what he wanted Reigen to think?)

Evidence of the night before was distinct in the living room's disarray. Reigen sighed at the _ever_ tedious task of picking up the displaced knickknacks of his side table and turning off his television—which, Reigen took the moment to admire, was a shopping commercial for a bra. Anyhow:

Before he even considered unlocking the graveyard gate, he did the proper adult thing and rasped up his voice to fake calling in sick.

"Shinra-san…" he said weakly into the receiver—but not too weak!; that was the key to trickery. "I'm not going to be able to make it to the office today."

"C'mon, you were just fine yesterday!" the man on the other end complained.

"I think the eggs in my omelet rice were bad…"

"Yuck." Reigen could hear the wince in his voice. "Well, I'll tell the boss you can't make it."

"Thank you, Shinra-san."

They parted ways with a goodbye. Reigen thought himself remarkably clever, but he did not see Shinra at the office putting his face in his hands and muttering:

"That bastard's probably just _hungover."_

.

Reigen didn't expect any crowd for the grand opening of the graveyard, and none was there. He just unchained the gates, like every morning, although unlike every morning, he entered the graveyard. He remembered when he was younger he used to run along the paths between headstones to the fountain in the shrine at the center of the graveyard and back again, and how the police had once caught him after dark in the graveyard on Halloween. He preferred not to remember that part.

He strolled towards the fence near his house. Trees from his backyard huddled near the ironwork, and in some places even entangled with it. Reigen reached the corner, where last night Mob had observed something that had interested him. Reigen thought he knew what, but…

Generations of his family lied to rest before him. Each person had their name carved in the stacked stones, and each place contained whatever was left of their body. Reigen glanced over the names—his grandfather and his great-uncle, who were buried together—until he got to the one closest to where Mob had been.

 _Tome Reigen_

He stared intently at the white etching. Then, he pressed his fingers to his forehead, a disbelieving and amused chuckle rumbling from his chest.

"Grandma… You don't give up, do you?"

Nothing answered him. Reigen allowed himself to laugh again before he turned around and walked away.

.

Reigen found Mob with a milk in both hands and a magazine on his lap. One of the officers had been kind enough to buy him a carton out of the vending machine, and he seemed more interested in it than the magazine. He hadn't even turned from the first page.

"Ah, you like cars, eh?" Reigen pointed to the flashy green sports car on the page. "Wouldn't it be fun to ride around in that!"

Mob popped the straw out of his mouth. He held his milk close to his chest, trying to see what Reigen saw.

"I like green."

Well, there was that too. Maybe it was all about perspective.

"Reigen-san?" The woman police officer called from the reception desk. "May I speak with you for a moment?"

Mob appeared engrossed with his milk and magazine, and Reigen took that as an opportunity to sneak away and speak with the officer.

"He seems to have taken a liking to you," she commented. "He trusts you."

"You think so?" Reigen glanced back to the boy with the straw in his mouth and unreadable expression on his face. In the least, Reigen didn't think Mob _hated_ him.

"I thought you would like to know that, if we cannot find his parents, we're transferring his case to child care services this afternoon."

Reigen's spine stiffened, although he did not know why. Intuition was trying to tell him something… But what?

"They'll be able to provide for him," she continued. "They can take care of him until they find his parents, or find him a new home—if it comes to that."

Something tingled in Reigen's chest that he did recognize: rage. His jaw clinched, and he mentally had to smooth over his ruffled feathers. It wasn't the officer's fault.

"Yes, of course."

Mob had a family, and he didn't ask to be taken from them. He didn't ask to be abducted by some lunatic in a hoodie for one reason or another. He didn't ask for the man to try and harm him, and he didn't ask for the only way to defend himself to be through his psychic powers. Would a new family even understand that? What would happen to Mob if the man found him again?

Reigen couldn't bear to see him hurt.

It was at that moment he secured his decision. Reigen had never been so certain or resolute in his life.

He was going to take Mob home.

.

"So, you're telling me… You we beaten by a child?"

The man hissed through his clinched teeth. He shifted angrily in his jacket, all sorts of pissed off.

"I told you already!" he forced his voice down. "The kid caught me off guard!"

"I see…" the one in the mask hummed. "Shigeo escaped."

"I woke up with cops all around me! How was I supposed to find him then? I don't know where he went!"

"He must have been taken in," his companion with the glasses considered. "They must have returned him to his parents."

"Most likely… Otherwise, where would he be?"

.

"Oh, isn't he the _cutest!"_

Mob had his chubby cheeks smushed like dough. Reigen, hoping that didn't upset him, looked a little nervous.

"Mom, please be gentle," he pleaded with the woman doting on poor Mob.

"I know how to treat children, Arataka," she half-scolded him. "I raised you, didn't I?"

Alright: fair. Nevertheless, Reigen did not want Mob to feel overwhelmed in his new home.

Reigen had gotten all the essentials: futon, clothes, shoes, snacks—milk. He had even cleaned out the guest room just for this moment, just for this homecoming.

"You can call me Grandma, okay?"

A little sparkle twinkled in Mob's eyes. Reigen, contrastingly, panicked and made all kinds of strange arm motions.

"It's not like that!" he insisted. "I'm just watching him until we can find his parents!"

"You did all the foster care paperwork, didn't you?" his mother replied smartly. "That means I can be his Grandma!"

She was undoubtedly playing to win here. Reigen held his head woefully.

"I'm too young to be a _dad!"_

"Too late, Arataka!"

.

 **A/N:** To differentiate old Tome from young Tome, our alien-loving president will be Tome-chan and our hipster grandma will be Tome-san!


	3. Who Are You?

**A/N:** This is just a fluffy transition chapter. Save me.

.

For Mob, it only took once.

When he was upset, and the spoon with the pudding bent to an angle:

 _"Don't do that, darling."_

When he was happy, and the pillows began to float:

 _"Dear, I need those."_

When he made the neighbor girl cry by levitating a worm near her face:

 _"Don't scare other children."_

Reigen did not know anything about Mob's real parents or his past life, but he did notice whenever the spoon would quirk in the middle and the applesauce slide down his shirt that Mob would shut even further into himself, like he had done a great wrong. And if little orbs of water danced around him at bath time, he would look ashamed and try to cover it up. He thought it best to internalize everything.

Reigen wanted to help Mob's confidence, he really did, but he could not think of any other way to do it, and, well:

"I'm a psychic too! I can do all the things you do!"

At least he started with good intentions.

.

 _"'Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I-I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'"_

Mob's eyes dazzled at the image of the long, green Caterpillar lounging on the toadstool and smoking a hookah. He pointed expectantly to the Alice poised before the mushroom.

"You should be Alice for Halloween."

Reigen laughed at the notion, but he realized Mob was serious. His mother (who never got rid of anything, bless her) had found the waistcoat Reigen had worn when her sister had to have that big formal reception at her wedding many years ago, and Mob at once wanted to use it for a White Rabbit costume. Reigen then got him the ears, and the tail, and the (plastic) pocket watch, not thinking about a costume for himself at all. He was a grown man, after all.

The fact that Mob would not plead somehow made it harder to say no. He would just accept it with a placid 'Okay' and never mention it again, for once was the beginning and the end to him. He wasn't known to linger on much of anything.

Mob watched Reigen start to sweat as he conflicted over the validity of his pride and significance of Mob's request. He settled it in a rather pitiful (and very dad-like) way:

"I'll think about it."

.

"Aren't you cute!"

Mob cared more about the bite-size chocolates the woman rained into his treat bag. He came for candy, not for compliments, although his White Rabbit getup was quite adorable. Mob peeked into his bag to see the new goodies and nodded his satisfaction.

"Thank you."

He retook Reigen's hand and was ready to visit the next house offering candy. The woman giggled, and she called out after them something that made Reigen jolt.

"Tell your Mom she looks cute too!"

 _Damnit._

.

Mob liked the graveyard. Not in the way Reigen did when he was younger necessarily, but in his own unique, Mob way. He liked the people there.

His favorite was Tome-san.

She recognized Mob when he made his first official trip to the graveyard. She was chic, for someone who had been dead for almost a decade, with a spunky and outlandish personality that reminded Mob a little of her grandson. She was also quite proud of her part in raising him, and told Mob that she was the one who scolded him when he pulled on girl's hair.

"And Arataka would say: 'But Grandma, why can't I?'," she reminisced with a smile. "And I would say: 'Because boys who hurt girls are the biggest losers in the world.' That's because neither party can win. The boy will be seen as disgraceful either way, and the girl will reinforce her supposed weakness if she takes it or be seen as brutish if she strikes back."

She always came to greet Mob when he visited, and that made him realize how barren the graveyard seemed.

"Most here sleep deep," Tome-san informed Mob of the ways of the graveyard early on. "A graveyard _is_ for rest. Others have moved on, to wherever is past life."

Mob stared at the characters engraved into her headstone. "Why haven't you moved on, Tome-san?"

"I suppose it would be about time," she replied wistfully. "Join my husband and all that. My intention was to wait until Arataka grew up, but…"

She grinned and gave a playful wink.

"Now, there's you."

.

"A 'consultation office'?"

"Yes!" Reigen confirmed while clacking away on his laptop. "I've decided I want to help people with my psychic powers."

Actually, Reigen had a fight with his boss over something _Shinra_ did, been fired (and when he knew Reigen had a dependent! The nerve!), and had no luck at the job office for over a week, but Mob didn't need to know that. He was going solo, and that was that!

"Not every spirit is a kind one," Reigen continued. "Some plague people's dreams, or rattle their piping, or even mix a red sock in with their white laundry! Won't it feel nice to finally start helping people?"

Mob didn't reply. He didn't know.

"And we can do it right from home!" Reigen tossed out his arm. "We just need to fix up the bookkeeping office a little."

Ah.

"Now, help me pick out which sign looks best…"

"Okay."

.

 **A/N:** Reigen's first adventure trying to dress like a woman. Be proud.

Bonus: If you want to see the bois in their costumes you can check my tumblr ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!


	4. Love, Among Other Things

Takane Tsubomi.

She had the longest and prettiest hair out of all the girls in the class. Her bright eyes sparkled like a chandelier, her laugh was like flute music, and everything about her just _glowed._

"Your name's Mob, right?"

Mob's face burned and his little heart kicked up, although he did not know why. He did his best to reply:

"Y-Yeah."

"That's different," she said, fascinated. "Who gave you that name?"

A fair question he did not have an answer to. He lowered his head nervously as more heat flushed his cheeks.

"I-I— "

"Takane-chan!"

Mob was saved the obligation of responding when her friends called out to her. Her eyes shimmered even more like diamonds, and she fixed her bag to join them.

"I have to go, okay? I'll see you later, Mob!"

Mob watched her go. She grouped with her friends, and they walked away together, her laughter echoing across the schoolyard. The wind whipped her long hair, and she tucked part of it behind her ear.

Mob gripped his chest where his heart was fluttering like a soft, frightened bird.

.

"Shishou."

Surprisingly, it was Mob who drew the line and did not call Reigen anything close to a family title. Reigen never asked why, though, but if he did it was a simple answer: he wasn't Mob's family, not really. He took care of Mob, surely, but Mob had a father somewhere, and it wasn't Reigen. Even at Mob's tender age he knew that.

Reigen looked up from pouring his tea. Mob sat in the little pillow nest he made for himself on the window ledge, a rather mournful look on his face as he watched the rain fall outside the window. The trees that overgrew into the fence blocked whatever view of the graveyard he would have gotten, and Reigen felt a little sorry about that. It would have added the ambiance his spirit consultation office needed.

Reigen lifted his cup from the desk. "Yes, Mob?"

Worried twitches played at his mouth. That was unusual, for Mob hardly ever stressed over anything. His eyes did not move from the window.

"Shishou… What's love like?"

Poor Reigen, taking all that time to make tea and having it end up sputtered all over the floor. Reigen coughed and smacked his chest a few times, a confused look donning Mob's face as he watched his guardian spontaneously spew tea and hack up spit. Eventually, Reigen grasped his lost composure, sitting up with a jolt that almost flung him around in his rolly chair.

"W-Well, Mob, you see," Reigen tried to communicate good faith before Mob would think he was lame. "Love isn't something that can be defined so easily. It is something that is experienced, but cannot really be explained. Love is something you _feel,_ not something you _say."_

"But how will I know what I feel is love?" Mob didn't quite get it. "How will I know it's not something else?"

"Oh, you'll know," Reigen assured him with his classic charismatic grin. "You'll know."

Mob contemplated that for a moment. Then, he nodded once, content with that answer.

"Okay."

He went back to observing the rain. And thank God too, because Reigen was running out of bullshit to say. He sighed in relief that it was over, rising from his chair to find the paper towels.

Reigen did not know what love was _at all._

.

No one could say Ritsu was not observant.

He had a way of noticing and understanding things far beyond his maturity level. Whether it be something like the way his mother brushed away her hair with her left hand when she ran into someone from high school or knowing how to work the stove before he should have, he knew what was going on and what it meant.

Usually.

He still had a world full of mysteries.

Like the night he found an estranged backpack in the attic. His father had pulled down the ladder for him to collect his own stored schoolbag, and in the process he found another. It was tucked away behind boxes of old picture frames and candles. He had only noticed it because of the vivid yellow of its one protruding strap. And when he finally worked it out, he saw it was a small backpack like his: one a child would take between daycare or elementary school and home.

A name was written on the little paper identification tag: Shigeo Kageyama.

The name made Ritsu more curious than anything. He wondered if the bag was a hand-me-down from a distant relative, since he could not recall any of his father's family having the first name of 'Shigeo'. Or maybe the bag had not come from family at all, and by some happenstance one of his parents had picked up something they saw had their name on it.

He decided to ask his mother.

"Mommy, do we have anyone in our family named Shigeo?"

His mother stopped running the water. She picked up a spoon and looked thoughtful while she wiped it clean.

"I don't think so…" she replied after a moment. "Your great-grandfather was named Shiro, though."

She did not have that hard line around her mouth she got when she lied, so Ritsu believed her. However:

"Then why is there a bag in the attic with the name Shigeo on it?"

She paused and peered down at the little boy next to her so attentive and so determined to know.

"What bag?"

"The bookbag behind the boxes of pictures," Ritsu reminded her. "It's yellow, and it says Shigeo."

His mother just looked perplexed. She returned to polishing the spoon, shaking her head as if ridding it of cobwebs.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Ritsu pouted in a childish manner more fit for his age. But alas, if she did not recall it could not be helped, and Ritsu had to leave it at that.

If she knew the bag, or a Shigeo, she did not remember.

.

"That's incredible, Mob-kun!"

Her awed expression reflected in the orb of water floating from the drinking fountain. Mob perked a little straighter as an emotion flowered in his chest.

Pride.

"And I'm only going to show this to you, Tsubomi-chan!"

She laughed at the special honor, or perhaps because of the lack of his typical shyness. Mob twirled his finger, and the water slithered back into the spigot.

"Do it again! Do it again!"

For her, he would.

.

"This is the place?"

"Yes!" the man, who bore the unfortunate status of being Reigen's client, confirmed. "It's haunted, I tell you!"

Reigen inspected the very unassuming looking garden shed. He leaned on his hip, half-whispering to Mob.

"Do you sense anything?"

Mob shook his head. "Nothing."

"I got nothing either."

"First it was my pliers!" the man cried. "Then my hedge trimmers, then my wrench… now the ghost has gone and taken my weed wacker!"

"Calm down, calm down." Reigen took charge over the man's misplaced hysterics. "We'll take a look."

Mob stood beside the shed. And that was a good thing, because Reigen was nearly crushed by the parade of brooms and buckets and other objects that fell from the shed door as soon as he opened it. The crisis (nearly) adverted, Reigen gazed into the tiny shed stacked ceiling-to-wall with junk.

Oh.

"I see what your problem is!" Reigen whirled around, confidence in his stance but sweat on his brow.

"You do?" the client sounded relieved. "Is it a ghost?"

Reigen nodded once. "Yes."

He clamped down on the man's shoulders.

"You are haunted by the ghost… of _carelessness."_

The man gasped in shock and acted like he wanted to faint. Reigen spun back around and pointed a determined finger in the air.

"Mob, pull your hair back and get a garbage can! We're going in!"

Mob let out a little sigh. They were supposed to be psychic consultants, but if cleaning out an over-packed shed solved someone's problem, he guessed that worked just as well.

.

"I can do it, Mommy!"

A determined spark flashed in Ritsu's eyes. His mother's mouth pinched in maternal worry, but in the end she could not say no to that adorable face.

"Alright, Ritsu… just stay on the path we showed you and don't go out in the street, okay?"

"Of course, Mommy!"

Ritsu thought he had never been happier. Finally, he was allowed to walk to and from school all by himself!

Ritsu did exactly as his mother said. He followed the sidewalks right to school without a hitch, and even looked both ways before crossing the street without her reminding him. He made sure everyone in his class knew that his mother thought he was responsible enough to school alone, and he even rejected an invite to a playdate so he could do it again for the sake of principle. He was a Big Boy now.

He was so enthralled with the experience he almost did not notice the other boy.

"The last one."

His voice was what stopped Ritsu outside the graveyard. The boy was inside the confines of the graveyard fence. He looked to be about a year older than Ritsu, and he wore the uniform of a different elementary school. He was crouching near one of the gravestones like he was engaged in conversation with someone beside it.

Since Ritsu was walking home and not to school, he felt he had the time to stay and see who it was—or maybe what they were doing.

"It wasn't very interesting, Tome-san."

Just _who_ was he talking to? Ritsu did not see anyone around. Nevertheless, the boy nodded as if something had responded, his round haircut settling back into place.

"There wasn't even a real ghost."

No way did he just say that. Ghosts weren't real! Even Ritsu knew that!

That boy needed 'a talking to,' as his mother put it. And Ritsu decided he was going to be the one to do it. Forgetting his mother's instructions, he marched into the graveyard, so unnoticed he startled the boy when he spoke.

"Who are you talking to?"

The boy scrambled to stand immediately. He was a little taller than Ritsu too, although his shaky demeanor took away from that. He twisted the edge of his shirt and flushed.

"O-Oh… Tome-san."

Coming up with a name impressed Ritsu slightly. Even so, he was not convinced, and he crossed his arms to try and act adult.

"Tome-san?"

"Yeah…" The boy swallowed a lump in his throat. "She lives here. You probably cannot see her because you're not a psychic."

A psychic. That was his excuse? Maybe Ritsu had only seen one reality show on it, but that made him feel like a qualified expert on the subject. He even pulled out a fancy term:

"Like… An ESPer?"

"Yeah!" the boy replied, a little comforted by his outright knowledge. "I can do that."

He did not come off like he was lying, but that did mean Ritsu believed him. What a ridiculous claim! What a ridiculous idea!

A psychic boy that made friends in a graveyard.

"Alright…" Ritsu thought to humor him. If he was a psychic, he could prove it.

Ritsu dug around in his bag. He fished out the spoon his mother gave him for his custard snack, holding it out to the boy.

"If you're a psychic, then you can bend this spoon without touching it."

Ha, got him there! Only… not really, because he was eager to do it.

"Oh, I can do that!"

The spoon bent in the middle without another word. It twisted once or twice into a nice curly-q, and the boy beamed at his first actual approval to bend a spoon.

"There!"

Ritsu stared at the spoon, dumbfounded. He hesitated so long that the boy became nervous again and stood like a pike.

"I-I— "

"That's amazing!"

Ritsu unleased a whole different side of himself. He cupped the spoon close to his chest, his eyes full of wonder and admiration.

"That's amazing!" he repeated. "I want to do that too! Do you think you can teach me?"

… Teach him? Mob didn't know. He had always had his powers. He didn't know about others.

"I… I can try."

"Great!" Ritsu was full of life now, and by no means deterred by the uncertainty. "You'll be here tomorrow, won't you?"

"Yeah." That he did have a confirmed answer to. "If you want me to."

"Thank you! Thank you, Oniisan!"

Both of their eyes glittered at the title. It also made them collectively realize something, and Ritsu laughed at how impolite he had been.

"I'm sorry, but what's your name?"

"Mob."

"Mob-niisan!" Ritsu said it in the way he wanted to. He also offered a short bow at the waist.

"You can call me Ritsu."

He then stood upright and tilted his head inquisitively.

"How did you get the name Mob?"

Not again.

.

 **A/N:** Young Mob and Ritsu fill my heart with love.


	5. Fatherhood's Plight

**A/N:** Shout-out to whatevsbla on tumblr for the cute fanart! You can check it out on my blog ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!

.

Mob looked over his fanned cards.

"Go fish."

Reigen's mother eyed him with a humorous sort of scrutiny and picked the top card from the pile. Mob asked next:

"Do you have any eights?"

She sighed like he was ever-so-clever and passed him the eight of hearts. Mob nodded and placed his full set of eights on the table. He went again:

"Do you have any twos?"

"Go fish."

Reigen paused reading his newspaper to watch the game momentarily. Mob had an expression more akin to someone playing poker, while his mother couldn't help but break her false seriousness and smile. She was enjoying her third round of Go Fish, at least.

Reigen shook his head at his mother's utter willingness to do anything Mob wanted. She was like putty. She was a Grandma.

Reigen engrossed himself back into his reading to forget all that entailed. He kicked back the chair, turned the page, and—

He sneezed. Loudly. It came so sudden that the force knocked him forward, his nose mere centimeters from the crease in the newspaper. He muttered something about that hateful woman from a block over talking bad of him before settling again into his chair, the newspaper a comfortable distance away.

"Arataka!"

Reigen lowered his newspaper. Across the room, his mother beamed at him like he had done something spectacular, and he made a funny face in his confusion.

"What?"

"You Dad Sneezed!"

Now Mob was confused too. He glanced between the two adults: one who was over-spilling with happiness, the other who looked as if he realized he had missed part of the wall while painting.

"I… _What?"_

"Oh, Arataka, I'm so proud of you!" his mother cheered. "You've finally come around to fatherhood!"

She left her cards to go give him a hug. And if Mob were not psychic, he would have sworn he saw Reigen's soul leave his body right then and there.

.

Reigen made a noise in his throat like he had forgotten something.

"Oh, and Mob—don't go into the graveyard today."

That was interesting: he had never been told that before. It was a Sunday, so he did not have to worry about Ritsu coming by to watch him bend spoons or make frogs float, but he still maybe could have gone and seen Tome-san if he wanted to. He also liked to do his homework under the big maple tree when it was warm.

"Why?"

"One of the families is having a funeral."

That would be an expected occurrence in a graveyard. Mob respected that and agreed without further questions.

"Okay."

He finished his waffles and put his plate in the sink. Not seeing much point in getting dressed, he folded up his futon and did his homework in the comfort of his pajamas. Even the workday was slow, and while Reigen insisted he had to organize his emails and stay for any sudden call, Mob was content to curl up with a blanket and watch TV.

Like anything relaxing he wanted to do, that did not last long.

A white figure pulled from the glass of the television. If Mob were any less numb to the peculiar, or any jumpier, he may have moved, but there was no need. It was only Tome-san.

"Mob!"

The area around her feet was always a weird half-image of something white and formed like sandals, and it made her look like she floated more than walked over to the couch. However, despite the cold color of her figure, her face and smile were as warm as any living mother's.

"You should come to the graveyard! Right now!"

Mob poked his little nose out from under the blanket. He gave Tome-san an inquisitive gaze before shaking his head regretfully.

"Shishou told me not to go there today. There's a funeral."

"Oh, it'll be fine." Tome-san waved her hand like her grandson did not know what he is talking about. "Arataka is just following the directions his uncle gave him. But, if you enter through the side gate, it shouldn't be a problem."

Ah, yes: the side gate. Maybe in some time past it had been a direct access from the groundkeeper's house to the graveyard, but now it was so overgrown with trees and vines that Mob had only found it by mistake. It remained unlocked, for it had no real need to be with all the foliage hiding it; and it couldn't be, for Reigen had no knowledge of the whereabouts of its key. The side gate endured sort of as their little secret, and Mob was comfortable to keep it that way.

Mob deliberated the ethics of going to the graveyard anyway. If Tome-san said he should, it was okay, right?

"Okay."

Mob told Reigen he was going to be in the backyard—which wasn't a lie; he just wasn't going to _stay_ in the backyard. And Reigen hardly said a word in response, simply motioning his hand much like Tome-san had done and instructing Mob to not get caught up in roots or nettles. (God knows how nettles sting.)

The side gate gave way with a rusty crackle. Mob rutted it in the dirt and had to duck under the tree cover, whilst Tome-san was right behind, passing through the material objects with her miraged form. She met Mob as he broke into the sunlight and cool breeze among the gravestones, a conspiratorial smirk on her face.

"You know what happens in life and death," she explained finally her reason for having him come. "But, I think it is important to know a little of what happens between that."

She turned towards the open expanse of the graveyard. Across the way, a few rows of gravestones down but close enough to see, was a group of five or so adults in mourning attire. Their backs were to Mob, and their heads were bowed, one with arms akimbo and a photo frame in their grasp. Mob recognized the man with light brown hair apart from the mourners as Reigen's uncle: the official curator of the graveyard. He was the one to call to put an urn in a crypt.

"Funerals are as much about the living as the dead," Tome-san expounded further. "They help in dealing with grief, because loss is neither pretty nor easy. Look! Even he knows. That's why he is here now."

A flickering outline of someone who might have been an old man appeared beside the mourners. He lifted his head sadly and dropped it again, his after-image growing fainter and darker with the passage of time. Mob felt his spark of energy ebbing away.

"He is going; he realizes the truth," Tome-san said in a small, heartfelt voice he had never heard her use before. "This world is for the living. It is not for the dead."

She gazed back, and Mob saw the old, wet look in her eyes, so much unexplainable emotion in them that it made his chest hurt.

"Life is the greatest loss you will ever face, and it is so utterly terrible."

Mob stood motionless. The man-shape ahead flickered his last dying vison, and then he was gone in the wind, like a flame on a candle. The breeze crossed over the family and the graveyard and the street, blowing to wherever the winds of the world traveled and came from. Like that, he was gone. And like that, one day Mob would be too.

Mob clutched his face. Little pin-prick tears slipped from his eyes, and he all at once knew something very, very human:

Empathy.

.

Reigen honestly should have given his mother more credit when he was younger.

Between parent-teacher meetings, planning for events, working his own job, and keeping Mob clothed and fed and happy, he was constantly kept busy. (As much as he did not want to admit it, he was parenting, and it was not easy. He was adult enough to admit that much.)

Likewise, on the day of the school sports festival, he even closed his office for the day to go and support Mob. That was his job too, after all: to be encouraging as he could.

And poor Mob needed all he could get. No matter what event he was in, he always tripped over himself and flopped to the ground like a ragdoll, or ran out of stamina so quickly he could not complete the event. His weakness was most prominent in the last running event, when he was one of the final people dragging his heaving and shaking body over the finish line. Reigen thought he might collapse from fatigue, but suddenly his demeanor changed, to something more enclosed and upright and formal.

A girl with long hair was running towards him. A pretty smile graced her face, and she waved with her whole arm, seemingly going to Mob to say something nice to him.

Except… She ran right past him.

Mob deflated woefully as she instead went to the winner of the race, admiration practically enveloping her. Mob fell to the ground, and Reigen took that as his cue to step in.

"Hey!" he called down to the shrunken Mob. "You did great out there!"

Mob rolled over a smidgen to view Reigen above him. Reigen offered a smile and a suave hand gesture only he could pull off.

"Don't get caught up on succeeding," he advised in a wise tone. "You tried, and that is much more important than being good at anything."

A little life returned to Mob's eyes. Reigen knelt and helped him stand up from the dirt.

"Let's go home, alright? We can get you a hot bath and fresh clothes. I'll even cut up that watermelon in the fridge."

"… Okay."

.

Mob wrapped up in a blanket and would not speak.

He also would not leave the security of his guardian's company, so that led to the situation of him being curled up under the kitchen table while Reigen cubed the watermelon. He was like a little washed-and-preened cocoon of melancholy, and Reigen felt awful for him. Rarely was Mob _ever_ moved enough to be upset.

Did the opinion of that girl mean so much to him?

Eventually, Reigen was presented a breakthrough in Mob's standoff of silence, with a soft and weak summon of, "Shishou…"

Reigen halted his knife in the rind. He turned and looked under the table, seeing a pale nose peeping out from the blanket.

"Yes, Mob?"

"I was thinking… Maybe I should have just used my psychic powers."

Reigen could not confront him harshly about his new attitude; not in Mob's venerable state. He would have to be delicate with his words, and that was something Reigen considered himself an expert on.

"You know what I've told you about using your powers against other people," he began quite strictly. "And how they are not something that makes you special."

Mob gave no reply. He did know.

Reigen wagged his index finger. "Using your powers for your own advantage is much the same."

He plucked the knife from the melon and held out the two halves (although he could not be sure Mob saw).

"Think of it like cutting this melon. Someone could work tirelessly for days on end just to learn how to open it. While you have a knife. Is it fair to ask someone to open it the same way you did without one? Is it fair to say you did it better when they do not have the same tools as you have? And what happens when you don't have a knife? The other person will have an open melon, and know how to open melons, while you will be left nothing at all."

Reigen allowed his words to soak in. He meant the conviction in his wisdom, and Mob knew that better than anyone.

Reigen always tried so desperately to help Mob be a good person.

Mob inched his face out of the blanket. Whatever sadness that plagued him had dissolved almost totally, and determination was its place.

"I'm sorry, Shishou," Mob said in more of his normal voice while looking like a cute blanket sausage (it was oddly fitting, really). "I won't try to rely so much on my powers."

Reigen quirked his mouth in a satisfied smirk. He nodded and returned to his melon chopping, his voice extremely authoritative to mask choking up on how proud he was and how sweet Mob looked in his blanket tube.

"Good. Psychics like us should not allow our powers—merely one thing—to define us."

.

 **A/N:** Do you think Reigen would be creeped out if he knew his dead grandma was just chilling around his house.


	6. Brotherhood's Burden

**A/N:** I don't really like how this turned out, but oh well. (I wrote this very quickly too.)

.

Mob liked Ritsu a lot. Fortunately, Ritsu liked him too.

Mob remembered (or liked to think he remembered) he had a little brother like Ritsu when he lived with his actual parents. He remembered one day there wasn't someone else in the household, then there was: a someone smaller than even he was. Mob hurt somewhat thinking about how he had a baby brother out there in the world, one he never really got the chance to meet or see grow up.

He had Ritsu, though.

And Ritsu was as close to a little brother as one could get. He admired Mob in the way little brothers do, and he was always eager to be with him, and he even _called_ Mob his big brother. All of it together made Mob ready to fill the niche of being Ritsu's older sibling.

However, Mob naïvely did not realize that being a big brother came with other responsibilities. Being a big brother wasn't just bending spoons to make Ritsu smile.

Fate saw he learned the awful truth, on a bright day amongst the new spring and budding leaves.

"Make it look like a star, Niisan!"

Ritsu gasped in excitement as the spoon twisted into the shape of a star. Would he ever tire of the same trick? I didn't seem so.

"Can you do anything more complicated yet?"

Mob furrowed his brow. The spoon arched into something different, and Ritsu had to take a minute to analyze it.

"It's a… snake?"

"Oh, it's supposed to be a swan…"

That was embarrassing. Nevertheless, Ritsu laughed. Mob was a psychic, not an artist!

"Keep trying, Niisan! I'm sure you'll get it eventually."

At least Ritsu thought so. The concept of spoons and snakes reminded him of something his teacher said, and Ritsu told Mob about an ancient mound in America that looked like a spoon, but was actually a snake. It was hard for him to convey how big it was, and he had to stand up from the steps of the shrine to spread out his arms fully.

"It's hundreds of meters long!" He tried to demonstrate with the insufficient length of his arms. "You can only tell it's a snake from above."

A sound-something like a ball hitting a bat, something like a gunshot-echoed across the graveyard. Both Mob and Ritsu winced at the sickening noise, and Mob felt his skin gooseflesh as sudden fear made his blood crawl. Ritsu held his most effected ear, turning out slowly to see the origin of the noise.

"… High schoolers?"

Three of them stood around one of the gravestones. They must have come in and snuck around the shrine while Mob and Ritsu were hidden on the other side. They all had on beaten up jackets, and one of them was rattling in his as he rolled his shoulders. The closest one had his back to them, and in his hand was a baseball bat.

Intuition told Mob at once that was very, very bad.

He lifted the bat for a swing. He followed through with all his might, and the aluminum bat collided with the gravestone, the resulting crack thunderous like the first.

Only this time, the top rock of the gravestone wobbled.

Mob had to get Ritsu to safety. He had to get them home to Reigen, and he had to tell him people were vandalizing the graveyard, because he was an adult, and he could stop them, he could call the police, he could—

"Hey!"

Mob's hand froze halfway to Ritsu. The younger's eyes widened in terror.

The outermost one had spotted them.

Soon, the others were turned around and looking at the sorry pair of children. The one with the bat grimaced at the sight, tossing the bat onto his shoulder.

"It's only elementary kids."

The high schoolers walked towards him, and God, did Mob ever want to run. He finally managed to take Ritsu's arm and yank him away from the shrine, only to have his shirt collar grabbed violently.

"Whoa, whoa!"

Mob's weak grasp could not hold onto Ritsu. Ritsu was shaken from him, and Mob was pulled away and twisted around to face the high schooler.

"You didn't think you were just going to leave, did you?"

Mob heard Ritsu's hitched breath as the others overshadowed him. He stumbled back and knocked into Mob, forcing him even closer to the threat. Mob, however, was more concerned with Ritsu's wellbeing, craning his head to try and look behind.

"Ritsu!"

"Well?"

Another of the high schoolers pulled Ritsu away. Mob was jerked up by his shirt like he weighted nothing, and the high schooler scowled at him. Ritsu did not go easily, and he cried out as he was separated.

"Niisan!"

So it was Mob's responsibility.

Mob was the older brother. He all at once realized the obligation fell to him: the obligation to keep Ritsu unharmed, the obligation to work them out of this mess. Ritsu was scared, and didn't know what to do, and as a result he had called out to his big brother to help him.

Mob was the only one who could.

The weight of the burden squeezed Mob's insides. The high schooler tightened his grip like he knew of Mob's new turmoil.

"Are you going to give us your money or not?"

Cold settled in Mob's heart. He dropped his eyes to the ground, his brain scrambled as he thought of the best thing to say.

"We… I'm sorry, we don't have any money."

The high schooler growled in his throat. He lifted Mob higher, practically choking him with his own collar.

He was God, and he could be as bloody as all gods are.

"No money? You expect us to believe that?"

He tossed Mob to the ground. As he fell, Mob saw beyond the arm that had thrown him, right to Ritsu with tears in his eyes and his arm reaching forward.

" _Niisan!"_

His head hit the stair with a deafening crack.

.

Ritsu thought Mob was dead.

He screamed when Mob wouldn't get up. He just lied like a broken toy, his head against the shrine stairs and his eyes shut. Ritsu fought with all his strength to go to him despite the tears blinding his eyes.

"Niisan! _Niisan!"_

"Stop flopping about!" The high schooler holding him back ordered. "Hey, help me already!"

The other took Ritsu's left arm. Struggling was futile, but at that point Ritsu did not care. He only cared about his motionless big brother, and the high schooler standing over him like it was _nothing._

But in a flash of light that was all over.

It happened in something slow and partial that was not quite reality. One moment there was a light, and another the high schooler with the bat was skidding across the lawn like a rock on water. The wind picked up, and everything was in motion, as if a storm had fallen to earth and brought all the violence and beauty that came with it.

And there stood Mob.

He was both light and shadow; both movement and stillness. Wind whipped at his hair, and he looked like some terrific beast, with a formless, rippling body and eyes like white lanterns. Hot colors of blue and purple and pink seethed from his very being, and the high schoolers holding Ritsu audibly lost their breath.

They saw an Angel of Death.

.

The silence shattered with the glass.

Reigen shrieked when the tree barreled into his office window without warning. It was a young one without full-grown leaves yet, luckily. Its topmost branches simply broke the window, sending bits of sharp glass raining down on Mob's special nook and the office floor.

Reigen's shallow breathing returned to normal as his heartbeat slowed. With a frustrated shut of his laptop, Reigen rose from his desk and went to the window to assess the damage.

And he saw.

Beyond the nearly bare twigs of the tree, a clear line of shredded earth traced back to the mature trees and into the graveyard. And further even than that, at the very end of the trail, stood something like an abysmal bird of prey, with multicolored wings that reached up into the sky and claws that tore at the air.

It was Mob.

Reigen almost did not recognize him. But that—that power; that power in such a little body—could not fathomably be anything but a psychic gone haywire.

It could only be Mob.

Broken glass scattered into the hallway as Reigen rushed immediately to the front gate. He met a group of thuggish high schoolers on the way, all screaming and all running out of the graveyard regardless of their clearly injured limbs. Reigen ignored them almost completely. They did not matter.

Reigen arrived too late to do anything. He witnessed the last of it: the divine wings crashing down, and the wind ceasing, and Mob crumpling down under it all. His energy fizzled out with a light and sound like a firework, and he fell face-first to the ground, motionless.

Reigen was smart enough to not try and move him. He instead lifted his wrist to check for a pulse, and in the process almost burned himself from heat of Mob's skin. There was a heartbeat there, though, and the fact soothed some of Reigen's frayed nerves.

But, the little one… The little one…

He looked like a dead baby bird. Blood was smeared on the grass around him and into his hair; a deep gash was sliced across his forehead. He rested beside a gravestone, once so proud and majestic, now in complete ruin. His little chest shuddered, and he looked like he was struggling to breathe.

Reigen had to abandon Mob for the one in more need. He was careful not to move his head as he picked him up; he was fragile, and chillingly limp. The only sign he was alive were the small, shivering breaths he took.

Reigen had to get him to the hospital immediately. He had to, but he also could not leave Mob, unconscious and unprotected in the middle of the graveyard.

Reigen broke his gentlemanly composure and swore all the nasty words he knew. He did not have time to deliberate what to do, the kid could be _dying._

An idea came to him before he truly began to panic. Reigen remembered the first little boy he had found, peeking between the bars of the fence and playing with something he could not see. But, if Mob saw, it must be true, and Reigen had no real doubt.

"Grandma…" Reigen said in a low, clipped voice to no direction in particular. "I need you to watch Mob."

He hesitated. If there was a response, he could not perceive it, and Reigen ultimately had to trust in his grandmother's will after death. He stood quickly, and held Ritsu's head steady as he hurried to the hospital.

If he looked back, maybe he would have seen a white figure, bending over the fallen Mob and stroking his hair.

.

Unlike Mob years ago, the boy Reigen had never met until that day had a school identification card.

And Ritsu Kageyama had a mother that came almost instantly. She was a tense, nonsensical woman, and she intimidated Reigen enough to make him break a sweat. She walked into the hospital room like a mother rhinoceros, and Reigen jumped from his skin and seat.

"Ritsu! Baby!"

Reigen was obviously not her top priority. She went to the cot where her baby was sleeping, his head wound cleaned and wrapped, and painkillers keeping his fractured rib from hurting. He did not wake up, not even for her, and that made her more worried than anything.

It also made her notice Reigen. She was not mean at him like he expected her to be—after all, Ritsu was hurt on property his family owned—but rather calm and civil.

"You're the one who found him, right?" she asked quietly, and Reigen nodded. "Do you know what happened?"

He did, and didn't. He knew something had happened between Mob and Ritsu and the high schoolers that triggered Mob's powers, but he did not know exactly what, and he could not go telling her that otherworldly powers had thrown her son through a headstone. He had to protect Mob also.

So, he lied.

"I think he tripped on a root and fell into a gravestone," Reigen lied like it were easy this time, like his skin were not creeping and his heart racing under the need for her trust. "Or maybe on the shrine steps to the fountain."

Ritsu's mother looked back to him, her mouth a hard line highlighted by aged crevices.

"Ritsu…"

She bought it. Reigen practically melted in relief. It was easy to lie when nothing was at stake—a single customer, or simply money—but when someone he cared about had their safety in jeopardy, well… It didn't seem to flow so effortlessly.

She bowed to him suddenly. The abrupt display of respect startled Reigen, until he saw how she tightly clasped her hands to keep her emotions in check. Her voice had in it the waver of tears.

"Thank you… Thank you for saving my baby."

.

Mob felt like he was burning alive.

He jolted away from sleep. Feverish, and confused, he clawed at his arms and twisted in agony at his hot body, whimpering out of sheer pain and wanting to scream.

"Hush now."

A cool cloth pressed to his forehead. Almost by instinct his body relaxed, settling back onto the futon coated in sweat. A fan kicked on, and he whined again as the breeze brushed the heat off his body. He grasped enough rationale to open his eyes, and he saw Reigen's mom perched on the floor beside him.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said softly. "Don't try to move so much, okay?"

"What… What happened?"

His voice felt and sounded like sandpaper. Reigen's mother presented him with a water bottle that he took fervently, and she tucked it away when it was empty. Not having a raw throat and unbearably hot body made Mob woozy. He wanted to sleep and not care he did not remember what had happened since Ritsu told him about the mound that looked like a spoon.

"Hush," Reigen's mother repeated. "You need to rest."

She flipped over the cloth on his head. Mob meant to thank her, but he was already drifting off into the peaceful black of a dreamless sleep.

.

 **A/N:** The mound Ritsu is talking about is The Great Serpent Mound if anyone is interested!


	7. Remorse and Remembering

**A/N:** Midterms are coming, so things are going to be a little slow!

.

Guilt.

Green and dark and sharp. It eats at the heart, like worms in a rotting apple, and it persists, plaguing the mind throughout the day and well into sleep.

For Mob, the feeling was new and awful.

As his fever finally dropped and his senses returned, he began to remember bits and pieces of what he had done. He remembered how Ritsu had cried out before everything went black, and how in the middle of the dark he recognized blood on the grass, and how his next cognitive memory was of when Reigen's mother cooled him. He did not remember felling the tree or throwing the high schoolers or hurting Ritsu, but apparently all that had happened as well.

Now it was known that he could not always contain his powers. And he felt terrible about it.

He felt terrible about how he could not stop himself from ripping up part of the graveyard he so loved and breaking the window of his ever-kind and ever-patient guardian. Reigen had to call people to cut up the tree and people to replace the window, and although he said it was not a big deal, Mob knew that was money he did not want to spend. However sympathetic he was to Mob's reaction to being cornered, in the end it did not change anything. The window was still broken, and Ritsu had been hurt despite all his efforts.

Reasonably, Mob felt the worst about that. Ritsu, in vulgar irony, had been hurt by the one he had cried out to for protection, and that principle sickened Mob more than anything ever had. No matter how much he wanted it, what he had done could not be reversed. Mob was left to the consequences of something he could not control.

Ritsu had not shown up to the graveyard since the incident, and honestly, Mob did not blame him. He was scared of himself, and he could only imagine how Ritsu—one who had faced the full unleashing—felt. If he were Ritsu, he would hate him too.

Reigen did not watch the emotional aftermath of Mob's awakening idly. He saw how Mob hurt and tried to hide his powers, like his very heart were sick and he thought ignoring his wound would heal it. That would not do at all, and Reigen had to find reign over the situation with his adult (parental) knowledge.

"Why don't we go and see Ritsu? Then, you can tell him you're sorry yourself."

.

"Please, come in."

Ritsu's mother parted from the doorway, but despite the invitation Mob clung to the back of Reigen's leg. His own legs shook like little water ripples, and if he let go he felt he would fall. Something very known to him stung in his chest.

Nervousness.

Reigen took the initiative to enter, and Mob inched forward with every step. Ritsu's mother offered him a warm smile, and that gesture eased him a little.

"I am sure Ritsu will be happy to see you," she said gently, indicating the staircase just visible from the doorway. "His room is the first one on the left upstairs."

Mob's fingers threaded deeper into Reigen's pants. He gazed up to his guardian warily, but was met with only the smallest softness to his eyes.

Ritsu was Mob's friend. Reigen knew Ritsu was not going to harm him, at least forevermore, and Mob had to realize that. Of course, there was the chance that Ritsu was upset with him, or even afraid of him, but if that were the case Mob had to stop circling around the uncertainty of that possibly. The ignorance of Ritsu's true feelings were what hurt him more than anything. Whatever the truth turned out to be, Mob had to sort that out himself and understand it could be better (or worse) than turning over the prickly reality of ambiguity again and again. It was part of growing up.

Reigen motioned with his head. "Go on, Mob."

The comfort Mob wanted would not come from Reigen. Mob understood the reason for Reigen's coldness with a little heartbreak. Reigen was telling him the peace he sought would come from Ritsu and Ritsu alone, and that was something he had to face without help from his dear mentor.

Mob unfurled from Reigen's proximity. He gave the ever slightest nod, to show he knew what he needed to do, and approached the stairs alone.

It was like this had all happened before, maybe in a dream he had or a movie he saw. The way the table sat in the kitchen and the stark contrast of the dark stairs and white walls was familiar in a phantom-like way: eerie, and haunting. Smooth edges of emotions long since passed and long since experienced rubbed in his mind and almost scared him.

This place wasn't home, but it felt like it.

Whatever conflict he had with his intuition ceased when he reached the top of the stairs. The nearest left-hand door was cracked open, and he saw a sliver of the wooden floor and wall. The suddenness of the tangible room almost stunned him stiff right there, so close but too afraid to complete the action. He knew deep within his marrow if he did not move then, he never would.

Mob forced his frozen limbs towards the door. He nudged the opening wider, just enough to not be intrusive.

The room was remarkably—well—unremarkable. Everything seemed brown in color; there was a desk and a shelf with thick books; and any messiness of childhood was absent entirely.

And there sat Ritsu, propped up in his desk chair and a pencil in his hand.

All evidence of injury was left to the single gauze that protected the cut on his forehead. The twirl of the pencil in his hand halted when he noticed the creak of the door, and he looked up to see Mob leaning his head in.

A sheepish moment hung in the air. Mob downcast his eyes, and bright color came to his cheeks as a result. He fumbled with words, and when he spoke it was pathetically quiet.

"Hi, Ritsu."

"Niisan!"

Next he knew, Ritsu had spring-boarded from the chair and muscled his way around the door to embrace him. He accidentally squeezed so hard it made his fractured ribs hurt, and he eased off as Mob coughed from the sudden pressure. Ritsu made due by burrowing his cheek into Mob's chest.

"It's been so long, Niisan!" he cheered as if the event that had separated them was not so hideously tragic. "I've missed you!"

Fleetingly, Mob could only stare at the boy who he was sure would hate him after all he had done. But, the affection got to him, and his little frightened heart became soft and melted.

"Yes," he said and put a hand onto Ritsu's head. "I suppose it has been some time."

Ritsu pulled back, and he looked up to Mob with his dark eyes glowing like pearls.

"You came all the way here to see me, Niisan?"

Inevitability reared in his question. Mob's candle-wax heart hardened a bit as his delight chilled, and his gaze once again fell to the planks of the floor.

"I… I wanted to apologize for that one time. For how I hurt you."

Ritsu appeared a little puzzled. Then, he brushed it off and laughed, and Mob found the courage to look at him.

"For the time with the high schoolers? You didn't hurt me, Niisan. The high schoolers did, and you chased them away."

Shameful! It hadn't happened the way Mob thought at all. His spine perked and his cheeks reddened in embarrassment, half-apologies fluttering from his mouth.

"O-Oh, sorry, I thought I did…"

"Don't worry," Ritsu assured him. "You saved me! You're my hero!"

Mob flushed deeper. A stray finger picked at his cheek, and a self-conscious smile played at his mouth.

"I am? Oh…"

"C'mon, let me show you my book on pirates!" Ritsu changed the subject. "It has parts that move when you open it."

Mob agreed to see it with wholehearted nods. Ritsu turned around, and when he did his expression fell in a way he would not let Mob see.

What he saw that day… It wasn't Mob.

It was something that had crawled up from the most primitive part of his being: so unalike, so distant from Mob himself that the two halves had never met. It was something ancient and animalistic that had lashed out as soon as it saw it was cornered; something that had no rationality except that of survival and death. It was what Mob would be if he wasn't _Mob._ It was senseless. It was a monster. It was raw power.

Ritsu shook the thoughts from his head before Mob could see them on his face. He pulled out the book, the joy returned to his expression.

He had to believe Mob was the better of the two parts. Otherwise, it would not have to wait for Mob to be unconscious to come.

.

Ritsu's mother lowered the teacup from her mouth.

"Ritsu does talk about him sometimes, but I never paid much mind to it. He talks about bending spoons and making water float."

She shrugged one shoulder. "He isn't usually that imaginative, but I suppose it is typical of his age."

The tiniest sweat drop rolled under Reigen's collar. He let the silence answer for him, nursing his tea with a thoughtful expression.

"Shishou."

Mob spared Reigen from having to pretend like Mob _didn't_ make spoons bend and water float. Ritsu's mother turned in her seat, addressing the boy standing in his characteristic polite fashion.

"Did it go alright? Was Ritsu happy to see you?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. He just wasn't very enthusiastic about anything, was he?

Maybe that was the part reminding her of her own child. She could not quite put her finger on it, but there was something familiar about the way he moved and spoke and looked. It was like she was looking at a snapshot of something she thought Ritsu could have been, but was never quite.

"Good," Reigen said in a matter-of-fact tone that showed he knew it would turn out as such. "Are you ready to go, then?"

Mob nodded and repeated, "Yeah."

Reigen placed his teacup back on the tray, and he extended the pleasantry of Ritsu (and his mother and father) visiting his home if Ritsu ever grew bored of running around the graveyard. She promised to keep that in mind and walked them to the door.

"It was nice chatting with you, Reigen-san," she attended his farewell. "And it was nice to meet you… Shigeo, was it?"

Mob stared up at her in utter confusion. He hesitated, like he didn't want to correct her, but he knew by the look in her eyes that she already saw her mistake.

"… It's Mob."

Embarrassment heated her face, and she felt like she was going to cry—although, that part was strange to her. Some odd and misplaced sadness came over her when he admitted his name was not what she thought: and, she realized, she had no idea why, or why she had even thought his name was Shigeo. She laughed softly at her mistake and shook her head.

"Mob, yes, of course, how foolish of me. That doesn't sound similar at all."

They departed after that, and Mob watched her curiously as she said her final goodbyes and shut the door. For one reason or another, the parting was particularly painful. She felt as if she was losing something: something precious she could never get back again. The feeling had only started when Mob was there—with Reigen, she felt nothing. Letting him leave was like she was tearing her own heart out, and she nearly choked on all the foreign and naked emotions clogging her chest.

The mother in her was trying to tell her something, but what?

.

The man stood on the edge of a building.

Wind tussled his jacket. He stood at the edge long enough for the wind to finally die, and the grass outlining the long scar in the graveyard stilled. Two figures worked within it: one big, and one small.

The man found the phone in his pocket. He dialed and waited for the ringing to stop, speaking when the one on the opposite end answered.

"You know that kid we lost a couple years ago? I think I found him."

.

 **A/N:** Will Mrs. Kageyama's motherly instincts win out in the end? Stay tuned to find out!


	8. Every Graveyard (and Person) Has Secrets

**A/N:** Some sweet stuff to make up for the past angst.

Also, implied assumed-one-sided-mutual-puppy-love Serirei at the end, I guess.

.

Mob's explosion disturbed more than the ground.

Many of the resting dead arose after the incredible display of otherworldly power. Tome-san took it upon herself to settle them back in again, whether they be a group of relatives centuries dead or a single unfortunate taken recently by illness. Mob wanted to enjoy finally seeing the other inhabitants of the graveyard, but he knew it wasn't for the right reason.

He apologized whenever to whoever he could.

But, as it happened, one spirit he did not draw from the earth, and he had to meet him a different way.

"Shishou."

Reigen paused spreading grass seeds on the barren earth. A little way closer to the fence, Mob knelt down and brushed at the earth, his bag of straw off his shoulder.

"What's this? Is it part of a grave?"

Reigen joined Mob to see whatever he was talking about. There, half-sunken in the soil, was a metallic plate. It was about as big as a bicycle wheel, and oddly showed no signs of wear, as if no matter how old and neglected it became it was meant to last. Mob attempted to dig out the other portion and see the full engraving on the surface.

"I've never seen a burial site like that before," Reigen admitted as Mob uncovered the ruins on the plate. "I think it might be something like a religious marker instead."

What was written on the surface apparently was not important enough for common people to read. The full engraving was composed of strange, unfamiliar characters, something like what a religious sect would use. Mob furrowed his brows as he tried to decipher the ancient embossment.

"Do you know what it says?"

"My specialty is spirits, not linguistics." Unfortunately, Reigen could not.

"Oh, but this part." Mob pointed to the words at the bottom in characters they both could recognize. "That means 'entrance,' doesn't it?"

"Ah, yes, but it could be used poetically," Reigen said with flourish and hand motions. "Like entrance into the afterlife, or peace, or…"

While Reigen was busy doing whatever he thought he had to, Mob caught the bottom of the plate with his fingers. He pulled, and the plate popped up like a bottle cap, revealing a hole.

Reigen hushed his mouth immediately and crowded Mob by the uncovered hole. He peered down into the darkness, and he could just see the bottom a few meters down.

"So… It is a _physical_ entrance."

A wet, sucking feeling came from the space. It was almost like a throat—like the very earth was living and breathing and omnipresent. Mob alone felt the miasma from the hole, and a hallowed expression crossed his face.

"Shishou, someone is down there."

Reigen glanced a moment at Mob, then back to the hole. He whipped away faster than a striking snake, that half-sincere charisma he got when Mob pointed out spirits in his poise. He smiled, yet also somehow grimaced, which is something only he seemed able to do.

"Yes, evil spirits love to attach to these types of things," Reigen cut up bits of things he had read into a coherent sentence, somehow. "They— "

"No," Mob halted the hilariously terrible falsities with a single word. "It's a person."

Mob wasted no time and slipped into the opening. Reigen's perfect explanations went up in scraps as he scrambled to watch Mob enter the hole, very real concern gripping like icicles on his heart.

"Mob, be careful!" he called after him. "You don't know what's down there!"

"I will."

Mob squinted against the darkness (it would have really helped if Reigen did not decide to block the sunlight by practically leaning his whole body into the hole). The deepness into the ground was about two or three times his height, and the width of the area was no greater than that of the entrance. Mob tried to pinpoint where he felt the aura of another person, and that is when he found the start of a tunnel.

"Shishou," Mob told Reigen where he was going. "There is a tunnel that looks like it goes towards the center of the graveyard. I'm going to follow it."

"Be _careful_ ," Reigen repeated. "If you get stuck down there, I'll have to dig up the whole graveyard to get to you.

That was an exaggeration, and if Mob got stuck he could just move the dirt with his powers to get out, but it was not important to mention.

The tunnel was adequately compact to make most people uncomfortable, but Mob was, well, Mob. He crouched and navigated the small space with only a soft feeling of curiosity, and that was sated soon enough.

Mob got just far enough away from Reigen for the echo of his footsteps to die when the ghost appeared. He arose from the dark as a white, feverish form: much like Tome-san, although very much unlike her. He was too tall to fit inside the tunnel, and part of his legs remained in the ground.

"Please… Don't go any further."

Mob stopped at his request. The man-shape materialized further, into something similar to what he seemed to be like in life. He came into view as a rather young-looking man with an odd maturity hanging around his shoulders. He had hair and whiskers in terrible need of trimming, and worry vibrated his very being. That is mostly what he was. Worry.

"I beg of you."

An orange orb nestled near his dead heart. It looked like a tomato that had long over-ripened, and Mob witnessed it flare with a multitude of colors across the shinning surface.

Mob voiced the sense he got from the orb, "Oh, you're a psychic too."

The man startled at Mob's response. The orb beat like it wanted to pop, but the man shielded it with his hands, a nostalgic and bitter pain crossing his face.

"Yes, I was."

Mob allowed the man to settle his emotions. The orb was stilled.

There was some heartache in his words. It was like for some reason other than his clearly young death that he saw potential in his life lost. Like, even if he had lived, he was cursed to be something he did not want to be.

Like he was scared of himself.

Mob did not want to disrespect his polite request of not advancing further, but his sentiments were stirring, and he did not know what to do about it. Unused sympathy cumbered about his insides.

"What's your name?"

It was all Mob could think to say. The man turned on himself shyly, but then a sudden resilience came, and Mob could see how forced it was. He did not want to be strict.

"Serizawa, but please—you have to leave. Something terrible rests here."

Mob looked to the dark space behind Serizawa's form. Unless he was talking about himself or the other spirits in the graveyard, Mob felt nothing out of the ordinary. What did he mean?

"What does?"

"What is sealed beneath the shrine," Serizawa explained in a quick, panicked voice. "I cannot allow it to be released, by you or anyone else."

That must be why he prevented Mob from proceeding. The tunnel led to the earth below the shrine, and he did not want Mob freeing whatever was there.

"Is it an evil spirit?"

Before he could answer, Mob heard Reigen yelling into the hole.

"Mob, are you okay?"

Serizawa perked like he had been caught—or like he recognized Reigen's screaming as his mothers. He backed deeper into the tunnel and started to fade out, pleading to Mob with his eyes and words.

"Please, trust me. Do _not_ allow it to awaken."

He vanished into the dark. Not wanting to worry his guardian, and without anything else to do, Mob returned to the entrance, despite his mishmash of emotions and burning questions.

"Did you find anything?" Even though Mob could get out of the hole with his powers, Reigen hoisted him up (and almost strained his back in the process). Reigen's touch was comforting, however, and it helped shake the worry from Serizawa that had bled over to Mob.

"Gold, silver, rubies?"

"Nothing like that," Mob regretfully informed him. "There was just a spirit. He said his name was Serizawa."

After running a spirit consultation business for years, _that_ was something that surprised Reigen. It lasted less than half a second, so quickly that Mob was not sure it had even happened and assumed he had misread his reaction. He was just as soon his normal self, and interest covered his nerves.

"Oh, really?"

"Other than that, it was just dirt and bugs," Mob thought at the last second to omit what Serizawa told him; it seemed like information only for him, something not to share, yet he did not understand why it read that way. "We should seal it again."

With the mention of insects, Reigen did not hesitate. He slammed the plate back on the hole and piled on handfuls of dirt, a nervous sweat starting.

"Yes, most definitely! We do not want people falling in!"

.

"Katsuya!" Tome-san's eyes lit up when she realized who Mob was talking about. "Yes, I know him."

She sat perched on her headstone like a little bird, motioning back to the house behind her.

"His family was the last one hired to groundskeep, and they lived there before Arataka moved in. They also went to high school together."

She propped her chin up with her elbow, her expression now grave (while being _on_ her grave).

"Other than that, his story is rather sad. Katsuya has always been an anxious individual, and that sometimes made his psychic powers act out. He worried he was going to hurt those around him, or the peaceful spirits in the graveyard. It made him sort of reclusive."

She shook her head.

"That didn't help him at all. He was afraid of growing up and going out in the world. He wanted to take over the groundskeeping job his father had when he graduated, but…"

She paused to recognize her grief.

"He died the summer after he did—I think his appendix ruptured. After that, his family moved away, and Arataka took over the house. I think because he feels like he never properly served the graveyard like he wanted to, he's doing what he can now."

Mob watched her odd sadness—the dead mourning the dead. Tome-san smoothed out her phantom kimono and straighten up on her headstone, her eyes shut and stature like stone.

"It is terrible to be scared of yourself, because that is the hardest thing to change."

Her pale eyes opened, meeting those of the boy before her.

"Mob… Promise me something."

Her vaporous hand brushed over his hair in a motherly manor. The strands displaced only slightly, and a chill zipped up his spine from her cold presence. Tome-san smiled and laughed a little as he shivered like a wet kitten.

"Do not push people out of your life because you think you do not deserve them. Be a coward, for goodness sake—do not hide away pieces of who you are because you think it is honorable. Never _regret_ who you are."

Her hands cupped around his little round face.

"You are going to live with yourself for the rest of your life. You might as well make them someone you like."

Her ghostly lips pecked his forehead. Mob shivered again, and she laughed again, holding out his face to view him fully.

"Can you promise me that? Can you try to love who you are?"

Mob nodded once, and his chin easily passed through her hands.

"Yes, Tome-san."

He was determined not to disappoint her.

.

"He went to school with me, and I knew his family. That was it."

If 'that was it,' Reigen would not have been so defensive. Reigen told Mob that he met Serizawa in high school, that Serizawa was where he learned of psychic powers, and that Serizawa was a little older than him but had to retake some classes when he missed school. Other than that, Reigen refused to expound on his relationship with his former classmate, and his twitching fingers and sweaty forehead showed how uncomfortable the interrogation made him.

Honestly… He was acting like a teenager on TV in love.

"Did you like him?" Mob did not want to upset his guardian further, but he had to know."

"I would consider him my friend," Reigen's voice pitched a smidge higher as he circumnavigated the question. "Yes!—A friend."

Was it more than that, then? What was more than that?

"Did you… love him?"

"Don't be _ridiculous!"_ Reigen didn't mean to shout at poor Mob, but he panicked and did. He quickly had to smooth over his prickled distress, leaning back in his chair and clearing his throat.

"I mean, even if I did, it would not matter now," Reigen tried to remedy the hurt and confusion he must have caused. "He died a long time ago."

He did, and that complicated things. Nevertheless, Mob recognized Reigen's actions in himself and understood.

"Oh, he was like Tsubomi-chan."

"Finish your soup," Reigen really did not want to accidentally yell at Mob again (or admit he may be right)."It's going to get cold."

Mob did as Reigen asked without protest, yet despite the compliance, he knew in his heart the truth.

.

 **A/N:** Note: Serizawa knows there is something below the shrine unlike Mob because he is dead + psychic, so the seal preventing Mob from sensing it is diminished. (What is below the shrine is to be seen.)


	9. The Last Day

**A/N:** Everyone's favorite shows up: Dimple!

.

Being in the business he was, and who he was, Mob was no stranger to evil spirits.

On the rare occasion that one of his and Reigen's clients had problems with a real spirit, Mob would do away with them, Reigen almost always insisting that it was good practice for Mob to exorcise the 'small fry'. Actually, if he thought about it, he had never seen Reigen use the psychic powers he claimed to have. (Was it simply… restraint?) But, anyway:

Spirits not native to the graveyard began to come around the area. They were usually wispy little bits of malice that even Tome-san could get rid of; the land she rested in was hers in life, and that held some power to it. Mob figured they had noticed his releasing of psychic powers and came to investigate. He really did not appreciate that, and he began to keep a thin barrier around the house and graveyard to discourage them. If Reigen noticed the barrier, or the foreign spirits, he did not mention it. Then again, they were probably too weak for him to detect in the first place.

.

"Can Tome-san watch the movie with us?"

Reigen raised an eyebrow. Mob hugged the bowl of popcorn with both arms, excitement briefly crossing his eyes.

"She said it's one of her favorites because of how silly it is. But, she did not want to intrude because it's your house now."

That sounded like his grandma: snooping around while not seeming like it. Reigen heaved a small sigh and shook his head in exasperation.

"I don't see why not."

Or: it's not like he could say no to that face.

The only reason he did not like it was because of how awkward it was. Mob could see his grandmother on the other end of the couch, while Reigen, ah, could not (but he couldn't let Mob know that). It was unnerving that he knew she was there, and she could see and hear him, yet not him her.

Why, even after death, did she have to cause him trouble?

During the previews, Mob craned his head over like she was whispering to him. Then, he smiled, conspiratorial like she probably was.

"Is that true, Shishou?"

Reigen almost jolted from his seat. He tried to play it suave: coughed, cleared his throat, and wore the image of innocence.

"What was that? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

No harm done. "Did you not like popcorn when you were younger?"

"Oh—no, I didn't," Reigen said with a little laugh. "I didn't like the way it stuck to my teeth."

"Tome-san said you didn't like it because you thought the kernels were cockroach eggs."

"Maybe when I was three!" Reigen defended immediately. "I grew out of that!"

Reigen scowled in the direction of his grandmother. Mob looked between the two, unbiased about the whole thing.

"Tome-san, I don't think Shishou appreciates you sticking your tongue out at him."

It was going to be a fun night for sure.

.

Mob did not know who Banshoumaru Shinra was, but Reigen did not like him _at all._

His usually calm, cool, and collected guardian absolutely lost his wits when they got to the client's house and he was there. Shinra had apparently taken up the psychic consultation business as well, and he got into it with Reigen almost faster than he recognized him.

"I'm sorry!" the client apologized, caught between the two warring parties. "I didn't know who was better, so I hired both of you!"

"He's not even a psychic!" Shinra pointed out quite aggressively. "He is just trying to con you out of your money!"

"Wearing a string of prayer beads doesn't make you a psychic," Reigen retorted, ever quick with his tongue. "You probably don't even know how to use those!"

"Wearing a suit that looks like you bought it at the convenience store doesn't make you a psychic either!"

"Please, I just want the spirit out of my house!"

Mob watched the display, distant in both body and understanding. A green, slime-like spirit slipped out of the hallway closet, but everyone was too engrossed in the conflict to notice.

Mob raised his hand and called out gently, "Ah, Shishou— "

"I have a kid to take care of, and you got me _fired!"_

Mob wilted. The spirit stopped on the carpet, looking to Mob with its one round eye in puzzlement. It was just as confused as he was.

Mob almost felt sorry for the thing. He dissipated it with the wave of his hand, leaving his guardian all the freedom to challenge what he saw as a bigger issue: his past grudges.

.

Danger.

Fear.

And anger.

All these feelings rattled around Mob as he awoken in the night, so intensely that he could almost hear them grating the walls like chalk on concrete. He shot upright faster than a launched ping-pong ball, his heart alight with panic and skin shivering. What-?

Tome-san.

Her terror hummed like piano wires from the graveyard. Shreds of his energy barrier dissolved in the air about him like leaves blown in the wind, and Mob knew there wasn't time.

Mob flipped off his blanket and shoved open his bedroom window. The wet darkness brushed him as he dropped softly to the ground, his bare toes crushing the grass as he landed and ran. Mob was never one for athletics, and his terribly frightened heart and choppy breathing hindered his already difficult break for the graveyard gate.

There was a… man, who was not a man; a person not wholly a person. Sure, he wore the skin of a human: an aged individual, with face and hair almost too perfectly smoothed, and a dark overcoat hiding the trunk and legs. But inside, evident to Mob past the pretense, there was nothing—no warmth of life or sense of belonging in that body. He was dead; or at least something like it.

Tome-san floated before him—a tiny fierceness protecting the graveyard gate. She held herself with arms crossed in an intimidating manner, yet her aura hung agitated and uncertain about her. Her voice was arctic.

"There is no sense for you to be here. The graveyard does not have what you are looking for."

"I would rather look myself," the man said, snarky and not ashamed of it. "If you don't mind."

"Be reasonable," Tome-san scowled. "If the graveyard had it, wouldn't I or one of the other inhabitants have taken it already?"

"I am being reasonable," the man disagreed with a mischievous grin. "I am reasoning that you would lie to me."

The man took a step towards her as a coercion tactic, and Tome-san went rigid. He was a threat—she saw that, and it wasn't unclear she did—but she wasn't moving; she wasn't turning tail and running. She was making a stance, and it didn't matter how much the man frightened her. She was going to protect her graveyard.

"Don't."

The man jumped at the sudden word. Mob had blended into the dark and placidity of the night so well that neither the man nor Tome-san had noticed him, and he moved out of the shadows without a challenge. A brief expression of motherly concern crossed Tome-san's eyes, but she just as quickly covered it, tucking away her emotions for the sake of the situation. She spoke with the movement of her eyes.

 _Go back._

"Don't what?" the man asked, acting confused like a normal person would have seeing a child in his pajamas out at night. "Are you lost, kid?"

Mob did not answer right away: moon-faced and cold amongst the blackness and clouded sky.

"No."

The man hesitated. He sighed and leaned on his hip, gesturing with his hand to urge the conversation along.

"What are you doing out here all alone, then? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

No response came. The man shivered in disgust.

"What a nasty expression… What's the matter with you?"

"You shouldn't bully Tome-san."

Again, that swift flicker of unrest rippled Tome-san's composure. The man looked between Mob and her before breaking out into another smirk, slinking into an even more relaxed pose.

"Ah, I get it," he said, taunting the very sweetness. "You got a little of the sight, don't you? Just enough to see the dead?"

Mob's fists seized up. He was serious, and the man wasn't going to see him that way.

"Dear, go back to the house," Tome-san spoke to Mob for the first time. "I can handle this."

"Don't worry, Grandma." The man waved his hand once more, effectively deriding them. "I wouldn't waste my time on a _child."_

He craned his neck over, mocking Mob by viewing him sidelong.

"Though, with an attitude like that I don't know if I would consider him a child."

"Whatever conflict you have is with me," Tome-san practically spat acid. "I own this graveyard, not him."

The man sneered at her. "Can't I have a little fun?"

Mob wasn't playing.

Mob wasn't joking.

Mob didn't think it was 'fun'.

Here the man had come, tossing around the safety of Mob's home like it was all some game; like a cat with a ball of yarn. Whatever he wanted he saw no drastic mission to obtain, for he thought no matter the circumstance he would get it. Teasing Tome-san with the threat of force was marvelous fun to him. Others being scared of him was entertaining.

Mob understood this, bitterly, and felt the reaction of ridicule: anger.

The ground shuttered. The man felt the vibration and broke into an even grander arrogant smile, turning fully towards Mob.

"So you have a little more than the ability to see spirits!" he crowed. "Not that it matters. It's not like you would be a challenge to put in your place."

"Dear, please go back to the house!" Tome-san begged for the last time. "I don't want you to get hurt!"

"Do what Grandma says," the man dismissed him altogether. "Don't pretend to be angry just to impress her."

… Pretend?

 _Pretend?_

He saw so little of Mob that his feelings were _pretend?_

All the streetlights shattered at once. Like the eclipse of the sun, everything fell into ethereal darkness. The shadows tinged turquoise as a spasm of energy circled Mob like alchemist's fire, and the colors reflected in the man's eyes as they filled with excitement.

"You're going to take it as far as you can, aren't you? You want to start something!"

The man reached up his arms, and the peach and black colors of his form stretched up into a violent green shape. What was once almost a man showed itself to be an evil spirit, with a terrific grin and height like a god's statue. His great fist elongated into something wicked and sharp. He raised it to strike.

"I'm not opposed to going along with that!"

" _Mob!"_

The collision was like a canon. Dirt from the fence flew up as the metal bent inwards, and the movement of wind frazzled Mob's hair. The hot malice from his power drew inwards suddenly like the ocean, his dark eyes meeting the pale horror of Tome-san's. Her body flickered as the long, green, knife-like appendage protruded out her back, but she grasped onto Mob for support, just enough for her hands to hold his face.

" _Run away,"_ she pleaded with him, her voice fading like chimes on a breeze. "Please, I don't want you to die— _It's okay to run away."_

Her arms slipped through his body. She crumpled—a falling star, vanishing and dying its last death. Mob felt every horrible, aching moment as she passed through his body, parts of her disappearing piece by piece until there was nothing.

By the time she reached the ground, she was gone.

.

 **A/N:** I apologize for any grief I have caused.


	10. Regret and Forgiveness

**A/N:** Cue the "I've obtained loss" quote.

BONUS: If you want to see character designs I did of Tome-san and Reigen's mom, they are on my tumblr ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!

.

She was gone. Just like she promised she would be.

Like the ghost at the funeral guided away by the wind, suddenly where there was Tome-san was entirely nothing. It seemed to Mob that as she fell through his body and disappeared she took parts of him with her, and he was left with a hollow misunderstanding of what had just happened. The black horror of reality was too much. His tiny heart would burst.

The spirit retracted his weapon, hissing swears at his mistake.

"It wasn't meant for _you,_ Grandma."

 _Him._

 _He_ was the reason Tome-san was gone. If he hadn't come, if he hadn't threatened them, if he _hadn't sliced her open,_ she would still be there, she wouldn't have been forced to pass on. It was all _his_ fault.

And Mob felt the full force of the resulting emotion.

 **Rage.**

Fire—everything was fire and wind. A ring stamped into the ground where Mob stood, his powers now onrushing like a tidal wave. Blades of disturbed grass and clods of dirt sprung through the energized air, and the spirit looked almost impressed.

"To think you were such a powerful ESPer!" he belittled nevertheless. "You must have been the one who released all that energy!"

Mob did not reply. Instead, he lifted his arm.

"Do you think this is fake?"

The spirit paused, then scoffed, "Don't get cocky. I can make you disappear just as easily."

The fence bent into a myriad of angles. Mob asked again:

"Do you think this is 'pretend'?"

"Enough with the chatter," the spirit lost his patience. "If you want me to come at you with all I've got, that's what I'll do!"

He threw his hulking form at Mob with speed not expected of his size; but, in the end, it didn't really matter. Mob launched him backwards with a beam of bright light.

"What you did to Tome-san wasn't 'pretend'."

The spirit pulled himself up from the ground. He stumbled with his balance, clutching the shoulder where his arm had been cleaved clean off.

"It wasn't 'fun."

Mob parted from the light-blindness. His hair shivered about him like a gorgon's snakes, his red copper eyes looking as if he could turn flesh to stone. He pointed his first two fingers at the spirit's forehead.

"I will never see Tome-san again, and it's _your fault."_

Mob realized then what he felt wasn't rage at all…

It was **revenge.**

Like touching a hot iron, Mob felt the pain too late to stop the blistering. The communication from his brain to his fingers did not occur, and the psychic energy released. The spirit had the briefest look of fright on his face before he was incinerated, the lock on the graveyard gate rattling and the road asphalt cracking as Mob send him to oblivion. He tried to retract his fingers and shut off his powers just as he did, but alas…

Scorched earth stretched all the way to the end of the street. In the most dreadful way, it reminded him of the trail of barren earth that led to his home and the missing tree. Mob shuddered away from the sight and tripped to the ground, disgust bloating his insides like parasites.

He actually struck out in _meanness._

Rage and revenge were not the same. Rage was a quick, hysteric thing: a reaction to a momentary upset. Revenge, however… Revenge took planning: a wanted hostility that involved plucking out another's eye to replace the one lost. Too deliberate to be excusable.

Vanquishing the evil spirit wouldn't bring back Tome-san. He knew he hadn't used his powers in the noble way to protect the graveyard.

Mob curled in on himself, swallowed by the depth of his emotions.

 **Regret.**

.

 _"If I were you, I would face the couch towards the window."_

 _Reigen stuck out his fingers to picture it._

 _"That way, if anything exciting happened in the graveyard, I could see it!"_

 _"That's the issue," Serizawa insisted meekly behind him. "I_ don't _want to see if anything exciting happens."_

 _"Serizawa-kun…" Reigen sighed, making loopy hand gestures. "This house is going to be yours someday, and you don't even want to make it your own!"_

.

Reigen awoke when the window panes vibrated. He sat up in his futon frazzled, startled, and clutching his blanket. The vibration quelled, then started up again at a pace very similar to a heartbeat. He hesitantly released the blanket from his grasp and abandoned the safe warmth of his bed, creeping cautiously out of his room to see if Mob was okay.

Once, something similar had happened. During one of his first weeks with Reigen, Mob had a nightmare about not being able to save someone from being kidnapped, and the resulting fright caused his powers to act out and shake the house. Reigen, thinking it was an earthquake, had went to Mob immediately and found him curled up in a fearful little ball and shivering. He was not crying, which surprised Reigen with him being so young, but he comforted Mob nonetheless. He made Mob a cup of warmed milk and assured him the best he could that under his watch Mob would never have to experience the insecurity of himself or anyone he loved being taken ever again.

Maybe he could not guarantee that, but Mob was soothed.

"Mob?"

Reigen switched on the light to find the futon empty. A light draft blew from the open window, and flashes of strange colors played on the other side of the curtains. Reigen crossed the room to investigate the curious display, peeling back the curtains and peeking out.

What looked like green and blue snakes snapped up from the graveyard fence. The poles that were bent to angles and curls like how Mob bent spoons were stiffening up, the metal creaking as it shifted back into fierce points. Reigen almost recoiled from the bright and oddly organic display, but not before he saw Mob, balled up near the graveyard gate like something was harming him.

Worry overcast sense. Reigen thought to jump out the window, but reason found him at the last second, and he turned around and made his way via the front door. The cracked asphalt outside also had embellishments of ectoplasmic snakes that drew the pieces together like clothing seams being sewn shut. They took only the smallest of Reigen's attention. What mattered was Mob.

Reigen had never seen Mob cry. Never.

Even at his youngest, Mob had not once been moved enough to shed tears. No heartfelt movie, nor scraped knee, nor denial of ice cream was ever enough. It was like he was born desensitized to the negatively he felt in his own heart. Maybe what had to hurt had to practically kill him.

Mob cried now.

Wet, broken sobs poured from his mouth as everything fixed back into place around him. The limbs pulled up to his face did nothing to muffle the sound. Mob wept in raw, open sorrow, all alone on the damp grass. The streetlights began to flicker on again, almost to illuminate Mob in a spotlight of utter loneliness. Reigen felt cold and sick.

If he feared the slithering whips of power that worked around Mob, it wasn't important. They were creative, not destructive, in nature, and Reigen could walk through them with only the slightest sensation of stray electricity. He did not want to panic Mob, so he knelt by him gently, calling out in the sweetest voice he could.

"Hey, Mob… Mob…"

The boy unfurled his upper half. His face was flushed and stained, the tears running freely from his eyes. He hiccupped, and whined at himself, false starts at speaking bobbing in his sore throat. Some memory of his sadness returned at the difficulty, and he gave up all together, burrowing his face in his knees and continuing to weep.

Reigen offered a little sigh of sympathy. Like his mother had done when he fell down on the playground and began to cry, Reigen scooped Mob out of his lonely terror and held him close. Mob clasped his fists to Reigen's shirt and sobbed into it instead—snottily, but Reigen didn't care. He stroked Mob's trembling head and stood carefully, walking to the house and leaving the dark uncertainty and terrible happenings of the night behind.

.

Like how everything in the world eventually comes to an end, Mob stopped crying.

That left them with the silence. Mob sat wrapped up on the couch with a mug of warm milk and honey, Reigen forsaken to the other end where he watched Mob stare into the cup distantly. The hot ceramic had to be scalding his hands, but Mob showed no reaction of pain, his two hands stagnant around his drink. The subtle action of self-harm only increased Reigen's worry.

"Shishou."

A breakthrough! Reigen wanted to shout with relief. Instead, he stopped picking at the snagged threads on the couch pillow, puffing up and preparing to give the best support and wisdom Mob could ask for.

"Yes, Mob?"

He did not look up from his reflection in the milk. He would continue when he wanted to, and Reigen did not pressure him.

"I… I did something really bad."

His fingers squeezed tighter around his cup. Reigen watched the aftermath of the admittance in patient confusion, not knowing the story or context at all.

"What did you do that was bad?"

The retelling was going to hurt—Reigen could see that. Mob swallowed the hardness in his throat. He organized his thoughts as he spoke.

"There was a spirit," Mob began. "A mean one—he wanted to harm Tome-san. He was toying with her, and it made me really angry, and— "

If Mob were any stronger, the mug may have cracked.

"—Shishou, I used my powers for the wrong reason."

Mob waited for any angry backlash from his mentor. Reigen was not a cruel man, nor impulsive when it came to Mob's wellbeing, so nothing harsh came from him. He just offered a quiet question.

"How did you use them for the wrong reason?"

Reigen's kindness did not assure Mob; what he did he saw as utterly terrible, perhaps even unforgiveable, and he could not fathom deserving care and understanding. He saw it all as a child would: there wasn't grey; only black and white.

Mob shook his head woefully. "I didn't use my powers to protect the graveyard from the spirit… I used them to get _revenge._ It was just like the time with the high schoolers, where everything just lashed out. I wanted to change from using my powers like that, but I couldn't."

His downcast eyes quivered like he wanted to cry again. "It doesn't matter that he made Tome-san disappear."

Reigen felt no… mourning, so to speak. He had lost his grandmother long ago, so no new feelings of loss surfaced. Rather, empathy to Mob's predicament came, and Reigen wished desperately to extend that. Misery loves company, as they say, and Reigen would do everything for Mob not to feel abandoned in his grief.

"Ah, I understand." Reigen motioned towards Mob. "When you stick a knife inside someone, it's not like you can pull it out and there not be a wound."

Mob looked up from his milk for the first time. Puzzlement overshadowed his red-from-crying eyes, and Reigen moved quickly to explain himself, over-exaggerating the crossing of his legs and arms.

"Regret is like that," he expounded. "The consequences of what you do is all you think about. I can be hard to move past that, because more often than not you see yourself in a different way. We can be trapped in the perceptions of what we did."

He relaxed a little as he mellowed his momentum.

"It's like walking through a doorway… A risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you. You mustn't allow yourself to be trapped by your inability to forgive yourself for using your powers out of malice."

He held up one finger and smile at Mob encouragingly.

"That is the first step to changing. If you want to move on, you will."

A little of the lost life returned to Mob's eyes. He nodded feverishly, believing at once everything Reigen said and how there was a way for him to create a better person.

"Yes, of course, Shishou!"

Something he said got through to him. Reigen wanted to melt from joy, but held strong, a thumbs up his final resolve.

"And in the end, you still protected the graveyard. You and Grandmother still kept the other residence of the graveyard from harm."

Mob tilted his head, musing the thought of an adverse positive action.

"I suppose we did."

.

 **A/N:** TFW the title is incorporated.

ALSO, if anyone has suggestions as to how the Scar Arc is to go in this story, I am open to suggestions! It is hard for me to write so many characters at once, so any ideas are appreciated! You can either comment your ideas here or contact me on my tumblr! Thanks!


	11. A Farewell

**A/N:**

#Jell-O

Since the story is getting more complicated, I made a timeline of key events on my tumblr ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!

.

Mob did not like Reigen's father.

Or (correction) at least not nearly as much as Reigen's mother. Unlike his mother, his father seemed to impose a point of making himself scarce, like if he wanted to see his son that should not include seeing the estranged child he took in. He had been stand-offish in the beginning about Reigen's decision to foster Mob, passively suggesting that he would have preferred at minimum a wife for him first, then a child—ideally of their bloodline. Like his mother (and perhaps what his father had disliked most about her), Reigen would not tolerate that kind of talk, and viciously and vocally challenged his father about it. Not wanting to sour their relationship, Reigen's father warmed up to Mob eventually.

No way would Reigen allow anything so awful to be said about dearest Mob.

It was good fortune he settled everything with his father beforehand, because he was the one with the family shrine, and Reigen wanted Mob to say goodbye to Tome-san one last time. When she had died around the time Reigen was Mob's age, he had the opportunity to let her go, while Mob really did not. He figured it would be good for the boy's coping if he could even have a farewell to move on from.

"Hello Arataka, Mob-kun."

Reigen's step-mother answered the door. She was a quiet, sweet woman who always smelled of the cookies she made in her bakery; dissimilar to the outlandish personality of Reigen's mother, but not in a bad way. Although, she was also sort of distant and not personable; she asked Mob to call her by her first name instead of Grandmother.

"I just cubed some Jell-O, if you want some," she offered as she closed the door behind them.

"Maybe later," Reigen declined. Mob pouted. He would have liked some Jell-O.

"Where's Dad?"

"In the living room." She motioned in the general direction. "You know, watching his soap operas."

She prayed with her eyes for release from the torment of all that drama. Reigen went to collect his father, leaving Mob in the entrance hall to view the house. It was the first time he had seen where Reigen's father lived; when he needed a babysitter, he would either go to Reigen's mother's apartment or she would come over to his house by the graveyard. Reigen's childhood home was about the same size, but had a tangible emptiness left from the flight of Reigen and his mother and the prospect of visiting grandchildren. Squares showed on the walls from where photos had obviously been taken down, next to frames that looked like they had not moved since the day they were hung. One in the hallway depicted Reigen on his school's sports day, sweatband on his forehead and cheeky smile on his face.

Reigen's step-mother broke Mob from moving his eyes around the room. She leaned down to him, smiling and whispering.

"Would you like some Jell-O, Mob-kun?"

Mob's eyes sparkled. He nodded enthusiastically, matching her whisper.

"Yes, please."

He received a little rice bowl of blue Jell-O cubes and a fork. The first bite went okay, but the second bite involved the fork warping in half with the cube stuck on the end. Mob flushed suddenly and held the bowl and fork away.

"Oh, I'm sorry…"

"It's alright," Reigen's step-mother said in a wavering tone of not understanding what just happened. She glanced at Mob with the briefest awe, questioning if maybe he was a demon child sent to play tricks on her. In the end, her human logic of uncertainty ruled out the notion, and she took the quirked fork from him.

"It's probably old," she reasoned even though she had never seen a metal fork bend on its own. "Here, you can use a toothpick instead."

She stuck a toothpick in a cube to show him how. Relieved to not have upset her, Mob readily used the toothpick-in-Jell-O technique and ate his snack like fancy hors d'oeuvres at a cocktail party. Reigen's step-mother smiled at his success. Footsteps came from the living room, and she turned her head to note them.

"You managed to get him away from the television?"

Mob had his cheeks pouched full of Jell-O cubes, so he could only watch Reigen enter with his father. When he was younger, his hair had been a dark chocolate brown, and it showed in the linger pieces amongst the faded grey. He had stern features Mob had not once seen his guardian try to imitate, but they did have the same nose shape, at least. Reigen was really a product of his mother.

"You act like you are not just as bad with your talk shows," Reigen's father scowled at her, but they both chuckled and smiled, so there was love in it. He nodded once towards Mob to cordially acknowledge him.

"Hello, Mob-kun."

Mob chewed and swallowed the Jell-O in his mouth. He nodded in return, figuring that the proper thing to do.

"Hello, Reigen-san."

Reigen exhaled at Mob's ever persistent formality. He turned back towards the living room and ushered Mob to follow him.

"Come on, I'll show you where the cushions are."

Mob made a quiet noise of compliance. He set aside his bowl, bowed and thanked Reigen's step-mother for her generous gift of food, and tailed behind Reigen to the living room. The old family cat sat perched atop the chifforobe, and she watched as Reigen dug into the drawers for the floor pillows. He placed them before the black-stained box shrine, and motioned Mob forward to draw him out of both his feeling and location of distance.

"Here, sit there and I'll let you open it," Reigen offered as Mob nested atop one of the cushions.

Mob felt nervous at the prospect for reasons he could not identify. He peeled open the shrine doors with a slight tremble to his fingers, revealing the various contents of the inside.

Mob was rather taken aback by what he saw. A framed picture of Tome-san resided at the front of the shrine, but he could hardly tell it was her. The photo was washed black and white, like she had been in death, yet she was so young in the picture Mob had to stare into her eyes for a moment to affirm it really was the Tome-san he loved. He knew because the same softness was there.

Altogether, the picture showed her with her arm around the neck of a man who must have been her husband, a fan gripped fiercely in her other hand. She had their faces smushed so close together that her hat almost caught his eye, but he did not seem to mind so much. An overcoat that looked like it matched with his kimono was on her shoulders instead.

"That picture is from Grandmother and Grandfather's honeymoon," Reigen responded to Mob's widened eyes. "They couldn't afford a trip, so they just went to the local university's baseball game."

He laughed. "I suppose that's what happens when you run away from home and get married. It was one of her favorite pictures, so we decided to put it in here."

Tome-san had told Mob the story before: her brave quest of defying her parents and marrying the man they did not approve of. It allowed her to be happy, marrying the one she loved, and Mob thought she was very lucky in that respect.

"I think she would have liked that."

Reigen hummed sagely. He reflected for a moment, staring at the picture of the family members he undoubtedly missed.

"… I'll light the incense for you."

Mob knew of the common shrine rituals, but he had never seen them preformed in person; many clients had shrines in their homes, but it's not like he had one in his own. He fussed with the hem of his pants and looked into his lap as Reigen prepared the space, startled from his worry when he spoke quietly.

"Mob? Do you want me to leave?"

"Ah, no," Mob half-mumbled. "It's fine, Shishou."

Reigen ruffled Mob's hair assuredly. He faced the shrine and pressed his hands together, and Mob followed suit, sitting up straight with his hands in prayer. He faulted a bit when he realized he did not know what to say, and Reigen offered him a pick-me-up.

"Tell Grandmother whatever you like—whatever you never got to. She may not be able to respond, but she will hear you."

That was the thing: Mob was used to the dead reacting to him. He was used to seeing spirits, not believing in them, so the idea of speaking into a realm even he could not perceive created a tiny flame of wonder and mystery he felt in his chest.

This was a little different. This required a different mindset.

Faith.

"Tome-san…" Mob began his reconciliation, timidly. "I never got to thank you properly."

Mob paused, flushed, but Reigen said nothing in the silence. What had to be said was Mob's to decide.

"You always watched out for me," Mob continued, not quite able to meet the eyes of her photograph for more than a moment. "And guided me, and took care of me, and protected me, and loved me. I wanted to thank you for that. You were always on my side."

Mob swallowed the knot in his throat. "But, like the man you showed me at the funeral, you had a time to go also. A time to move on from the world of the living. I never knew you when you were alive, but those who did are very, very lucky."

The final line surprised Reigen. He peeked at Mob out of the corner of his eye, and he saw how his face had mellowed into a peaceful expression of reverence.

"I just wanted to thank you for all you did for me," Mon concluded. "And to say goodbye. It was really great to have known you at all, Tome-san."

He kept his eyes shut long enough for the last words of the farewell to leave his body. When he was contented, he opened his eyes and allowed his hands to fall to rest in his lap. He now stared at the photograph of his beloved Tome-san fondly. Reigen was eager to know his lingering thoughts.

"Did that make you feel any better?" he asked. "Do you feel more at peace? Less tense?"

Mob made a small noise of confirmation and nodded once. "Yes. I feel more… hopeful. Like I know that I'll see Tome-san again someday."

He looked up to Reigen. "Thank you for bringing me here, Shishou."

Reigen could only blink for a moment. Then, he grinned and laughed, preening his own ego at the terrific decision he had made.

"Of course! I always try to do what's best for the problems that I see in the world."

He was in the business of it, in fact (and, he thought, very good at it). Mob had no doubts about Reigen's sincerity, and a little glitter illuminated his eyes. Reigen permitted himself to bask in the glory of his self-praise before the cat darted into the kitchen and reminded him of other matters.

"Since we're finished, you'd better eat the rest of your Jell-O before it gets too warm," Reigen successfully recollected the existence of the half-full bowl of Jell-O. Mob perked, and bounced up from the cushion, excusing himself with words and a bow although he did not really need to, and returned to the kitchen to eat the remainder of his snack. Reigen watched him depart before turning back towards the shrine, saying his own prayer to the grandmother he had known in life but never in death.

"Thanks for looking out for Mob, Grandmother," Reigen said to the photograph. "Please, help him have the optimism he has with seeing you again include finding his parents."

The last crumble of incense fell away to smoke. Reigen looked expectantly to the photograph, and then sighed, shutting the doors of the shrine and putting away the cushions until the next time someone needed the assurance of dear Grandmother Tome.

.

 **A/N:** Reigen's Step-Mother: Yeah, Mob's pretty cute!

Reigen's Mother: I would die for him.


	12. A Meeting

**A/N:** IT HAS BEEN 12 CHAPTERS BEFORE HAY BOI FINALLY SHOWS UP. (Sadly without the wig.)

.

"Are you nervous, Niisan?"

Mob paused from eating his ice cream. Ritsu made a little 'blep' face with his tongue and took a lick from his own cone, shivering as the cold ice cream grazed his teeth.

"Nervous?"

"This is your last year of elementary school, Niisan!" Ritsu clarified. "Aren't you nervous about starting middle school next year?"

"Oh… maybe a little," Mob admitted, holding his ice cream like he was hiding behind a bouquet of flowers. "There will be a lot of new people…"

"But, in two years I will get to go with you!" Ritsu reminded him, and it made Mob feel a little better. "I'm going to try and be in the student council."

"I'm sure you'll get in." Mob recognized Ritsu, despite being more grizzled and serious than any other child he knew, had always been well-liked by his peers. "Maybe you'll even get to be president someday."

"You think so?" Ritsu contemplated, and again made that tongue-out face he always did when he had sweets. "The student council president of Salt Middle School…"

.

Mob heard about him before he saw him.

"Did you see the new boy in the other class? So cute!"

The girls almost knocked into him—he blended in so well to the early morning rush that they did not notice him amongst the crowd. Mob closed in on himself sheepishly, mouthed a soft 'Sorry' to them, but they noticed none of it. They were too engrossed with clinging together and speaking as a single unit.

"The one with the blonde hair?"

"Yes!"

Mob wondered who they were talking about.

By lunch time, Mob learned his name was Teruki Hanazawa. Mob heard the chatter about him while he ate his mozuku seaweed and black vinegar sauce (Reigen was not nearly as good at making bento as his or Ritsu's mother, but boy, did he try). Reigen had forgotten to taste if he had washed all the salt out of it, and Mob was forced to put aside the bitter seaweed in favor of the cheeseburger with the little ketchup heart. (He would feel guilty about wasting it, though, and eventually eat it anyway.)

"I heard that Hanazawa-kun used to play soccer for his other school," the girl who sat next to Mob said to her friend. "That means he's pretty good, right?"

"I guess we'll see when our classes play against each other!"

Mob's arm locked up. He had forgotten that was today.

Nothing: absolutely nothing sports-related went well for Mob. Whether it be tripping over himself while swinging the racquet in tennis, fainting from fatigue while sprinting, or nearly drowning while doing swimming laps and the school having to call Reigen in from meeting with a client, Mob met trouble from his physical weakness and athletic inability almost daily. His classmates came to expect it by now: his vigorous attempt, and equally spectacular failure.

It was worse when Tsubomi-chan saw.

A merciful deity smiled upon Mob that day, for Tsubomi's class was occupied in the adjacent field. Mob got the briefest glimpse of her in her cute power-pink gym clothes as she took her position on the field. He felt the red burn on his cheeks, and he practically folded under the great weight of his affection. Maybe, one day…

"Look! There's Hanazawa-kun!"

The message wasn't meant for him, but Mob jerked his eyes up nonetheless. If Teruki Hanazawa was the boy on the opposite side he did not recognize, then the girls in the morning were correct: he was blonde.

Blonde in a showy way; blonde in a way almost too intentional. Blonde to match a part—a niche, a standing, a role in life—although Mob did not know why that would be.

He stood in a radiance of confidence: a boy who felt he conquered the world and showed it in his movement. That intimidated Mob so much that he downcast his eyes to Teruki's shirt, and he did not fully see the sly expression and flirtatious gesture of his fingers that made the girl closest to Mob peep and hide her blushing face. His resulting smile was like a panther, and warning signals went off as Mob sensed something with the atmosphere was wrong.

"Ready? Go!"

Mob was frightened further by the teacher blowing the whistle and starting the game. The beginning scuffle led to the ball sailing towards the opposing net, and Mob hurried with all his might to position himself in a better way to counter someone launching it back.

Like Teruki.

He went for the ball in a way that was too… unreadable. He seized control of the ball as effortlessly as kicking up dead leaves, darting in a full loop that left those running for the net reeling to turn around. He moved with grace and power Mob had never seen in the sport before, with the ball not so much as kicked as guided to glide across the grass. Teruki zipped by the oncoming defenders with another misguiding and odd movement. He reached the center of the field, and Mob's skin began to tingle.

Oh. That was it. He was using telekinesis.

The otherworldly power showed with the lightest yellow sheen on the ball. Mob saw now that when Teruki's feet moved, the ball followed, more like a marionette on a string than a free-rolling sphere.

Now. That wasn't fair.

Teruki continued his warpath in Mob's direction. Almost by instinct, Mob swerved to counter him, meeting him at an angle neither had planned.

The clash was more like a soft explosion of flower petals. Or, rather, _something_ like it, because Mob crashed to the ground trying to steal the ball. The softness came when their psychic powers met: a gentle frequency from Mob that dispersed Teruki's grip on the ball. The unexpected disconnection startled him, and in his confusion his foot rolled over the top of the ball and caused him to lose his balance. His momentum switched suddenly to falling, and Mob gave a cry as he toppled onto him.

It took a moment for Mob to realize Teruki's knee had smacked the back of his head, and the headache as a consequence. Mob whined at the pain, and Teruki wasted no time bouncing back onto his feet, in an almost fearful manner, like Mob were a hot branding plate. Mob vaguely recognized the teacher blowing the whistle for a time-out as he held his head and peered up.

Teruki wore an absolutely disgusted look. So apparent were his feelings that Mob's heart dropped, and Teruki took two steps back. Never before had Mob seen someone look so appalled and offended, yet scared, at the same time.

Mob had desecrated something sacred: Teruki's pride.

Mob did not know he felt sick until he was throwing up on the grass. A few children retched themselves at the sight and turned away, Teruki using the opportunity to flee to his side of the field and the teacher arriving to take control of the situation. He called to another teacher to watch the class before helping Mob up by the arm, guiding him with soothing words and a slow pace towards the nurse's office.

"We'll get you some ice, okay? Then we'll call your guardian to come and take you home."

Why did it always have to end up like this?

.

After a nap and a cup of ginger tea, Mob felt much better.

He spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in his window nook in Reigen's office, watching him tend to clients who came with a stiff back or shoulders. Mob made himself buttered toast while Reigen finished. He had to wait to tell him all that had happened.

"I think he was an ESPer like me," Mob explained the new student Teruki Hanazawa. "I think he moved the ball with telekinesis."

"That's not fair," Reigen spoke what Mob had thought, and sighed. "But, I suppose we cannot expect everyone to have high morals. Even other ESPers."

"Mob— " Reigen stuck out his pointer finger. "Don't think just because others do things that it's okay. You should act on your own judgement."

"I try, Shishou," Mob replied meekly (he really did try).

"I don't want you getting into any fights," Reigen tacked on, maybe more stern than he needed to be with dear peaceful Mob. "You should try to guide him, not confront him. People can change, but it should be on their own terms."

Mob sure hoped so. He turned his head and gazed out the window, where the trees blew in the wind and the grass had grown back in the graveyard.

.

To any regular passer-by, the graveyard fence looked the same as it had. But the man was no regular passer-by.

He touched his fingers to one of the metal poles. A blue spark twinkled at his fingers like static left in clothing. He pulled his hand back and looked at his first two fingers, rubbing his thumb over them experimentally.

Interesting.

.

 **A/N:** This is a little introduction to our beloved Teru! More of him next chapter!


	13. Black Clouds Blue Rainfall

**A/N:** Sorry for the wait, but finals are coming, so I need to focus on those!

.

Customarily, Mob sat in his little window nook while Reigen did paperwork.

Sometimes he read, sometimes he studied, but often enough that it made Reigen curious Mob stared out the window—and Reigen wondered what he thought about. What he did that day, perhaps? Did he imagine stories? Philosophies? Did he contemplate the universe in ways Reigen (a mere human) could not even begin to imagine?

"It's getting dark outside."

Reigen looked up from scribbling to try to make his dying pen work again. Mumbling slate-grey clouds were coming from the way of the graveyard, with a wind that spoke of late-season bitterness and the unknown.

"It looks like it's going to rain," Reigen concluded. He turned back to his increasingly agitating pen.

Mob remained still. A chill of warning graced his spine, like what one would get when the midnight of Halloween struck on the clock.

"It's as if the very sky is angry."

"You should hurry to meet the groundskeepers, then," Reigen ignored (or did not notice) the foreboding in his words. "And take your raincoat just in case."

Mob perked from whatever cold mood of melancholy he had slipped into. For next spring they wanted to plant chrysanthemums around the shrine, and Reigen's uncle had been kind enough to allow Mob to pick where and what color they would be. Mob wanted to decide before chrysanthemums went out of season for the year.

Mob excused himself and ran to dig his coat and boots out of the hall closet. From his desk, Reigen could see small flashes of Mob's activity beyond the front door, and how he struggled to fit the rain boots on his feet. He would have to buy him new ones for next year.

Reigen was almost startled by how domestic that realization was—but, honestly, he was used to it by now. Mob had been living with him for so long that passing thoughts like buying new boots or remembering to pick up the jelly that Mob liked were common. Any strive to find the parents Mob had been taken from had come up fruitless, so he wondered…

Mob was going to enter middle school soon; he was practically a teenager. Now, that realization was frightening: that Mob had lived with Reigen far longer than he had ever anticipated, and at this point probably until his adult life. When Mob met Reigen, he was so tiny and sweet that it was easy to think that one day his family would come for him, but he hardly heard Mob speak of that anymore. He had accepted the truth of Reigen being his guardian forever before Reigen had even thought of it.

"I'm going now, Shishou." Mob poked his head around the doorway. "I'll wait on the shrine steps until they arrive."

Reigen nodded absently; caught in his revelation, and Mob knowing none of it. He shut the front door with a soft click, and Reigen hesitated numbly even after he left. He eventually sunk in his chair with a sigh, gripping the front of his hair and rubbing his palms across his forehead.

When had Mob lost hope?

.

It did not take long for Teru to get information.

"Mob? Yeah, he lives in a house by a graveyard, can't miss it."

"We had the school Halloween party there once! All he did was talk to someone who wasn't there. It was super creepy!"

"I think his house has a sign that says _Spirits and Such Consultation Office_ on the outside of it?"

Teru had not expected finding out where Mob lived to be quite _that_ easy, but here he was, in front of a house next to a graveyard, and with a sign reading _Spirits and Such Consultation Office_ atop the doorway.

Teru did not take competition lightly… to say the least. And, unfortunately, he saw _many_ things in his life as competition: grades, looks, sports; anything to prove he was better than everyone else. If he took shame, it was personal, and if anyone tried to challenge him, it wasn't pretty.

Like Mob.

Tripping up on the ball was not a coincidence; not a mistake on the part of Teru. When they collided, Teru had felt the spark that shorted out his psychic energy, like the dangling strings of his confident grip had been snipped. He had fallen, and retracted in anger, upset both by his tumble and the one who had so easily caused it.

 _He_ was supposed to be the one with psychic powers that made everyone admire him—not some milksop of a boy who threw up his lunch on the soccer field.

Teru was better than that. And he wanted to make sure Mob knew he was, so he entered his house looking for him.

Maybe he should have knocked or rung the doorbell like the sign beside the door told him to, but politeness was not the first thing on his mind. The door opened with no resistance, leading to a front parlor with a closet and umbrella bucket. To the left, it led to the living area, where Teru could see a window and a couch and a doorway outlining the kitchen. To the right, there was only an office, and a man at a desk doing paperwork.

He lifted his head. His eye's met Teru's, and the soft expression in them did not change, but his eyebrow rose, and the side of his mouth with it.

He must have been Mob's guardian.

"Can I help you?"

Alright, Teru would play his game. He entered the office and sat in the chair before the desk, not replying with words, but replying with that. The nameplate before him read _Arataka Reigen._

Reigen's face quieted with his approach. He was more watchful now, as if he read Teru, effortlessly, and Teru almost scoffed in his very face. Amusing.

"I'm looking for Mob."

Reigen nodded nonchalantly, like he expected that request. He shuffled the papers on his desk straight, and the ease by which he did and spoke was almost infuriating.

"Are you a classmate of his?"

Teru bit back his temper. For some reason, the man was not going to give Mob over freely like he had anticipated. Teru was going to have to play some cards right. And that included presenting himself as someone who could cause no harm.

"Yes! I wanted to make sure he was okay after he went home sick the other day. I haven't seen him since then, and I wanted to say I was sorry."

If Reigen noted the new sweetness to Teru's persona, he did not show it. Instead, he made a series of odd hand gestures Teru could hardly keep track of, ending them all by making a sideways L with his thumb and forefinger that pointed towards the wall.

"Ah! You're Teruki Hanazawa, then."

Just who _was_ he? No mind, Teru nodded obediently and confirmed.

"Yes, I am."

Reigen tapped a stray paper back into place, a pensive maturity to his face.

"Mob told me about you, and about what you did."

He was not accusatory, at least. A lesser parental body may have blamed him for hurting their poor little muffin, but Reigen seemed pretty understanding. Teru could work with that.

"I'm really sorry," Teru apologized to Reigen, and in general. "I didn't mean for it to happen the way it did."

Reigen just sort of observed. He folded his hands under his chin, and he posed a single question:

"You haven't met others with psychic powers, have you?"

No, _that's_ the part Mob told him?

Cold hesitation sank over Teru. He did not answer, and Reigen did not move, and his gaze soon inflamed the anger Teru had settled in his blood. His bottom jaw clinched painfully, and visibly, and Reigen relaxed from his imperious pose, finally leaning back in his chair to be more colloquial.

"You have probably lived your life as a big fish surrounded by masses of little fish, right?" Reigen asked rhetorically. "Where from an early age you have always found easy ways to better your peers through your psychic powers. You made it so in their eyes, and in your own, you are special: a gifted student, a soccer star—whatever satisfies your need to stand out. When, in reality, you don't have brains or athletic ability. You just have psychic powers. Like Mob does."

The smallest vibration shifted the wooden floor. Teru shot up from his seat, like a great bird flashing its talons.

"I didn't come here to talk to you," Teru spat his words like poison. "I want to talk to Mob."

Reigen cocked his head slightly. His final question was one word long.

"Why?"

The peace shattered, and the sound was like a bullet through glass. Reigen was flung against the wall, and his desk somehow threw itself precariously into the bookcase, and almost caused it to topple. Teru took the place of the desk, looking like how a Roman solider may have looked before spearing the crucified. He lifted his hand, and Reigen's ribs squeezed until he choked.

"What gives _you_ the right to say anything?"

Much like Mob, he had desecrated Teru's blessed pride.

.

Mob pointed left of the set of steps.

"I like the pink ones a little closer."

The groundskeeper shifted the potted chrysanthemums over half a foot. Mob descended the steps, checked the placement, nodded, and ascended the steps to the shelter of the shrine once more.

"That's the last of them, then," the assisting groundskeeper marked his clipboard. "Now we can get your order sorted for next year."

The dark clouds thundered. Mob peered up from under his hood and the roof of the shrine, viewing the threatening clouds as they came in with the cold wind. For one reason or another, he had the impulse to look homeward, where beyond the trees and fence he could just see the edges of its framework. The house was cast with before-the-storm shadow, and Mob could not help but stare at that juxtaposed poetry: where the place he was most loved and warm had times it was darkest and the mood was wrong. He almost did not notice the groundkeeper speaking.

"We'd better get the flowers back in the truck before it starts to rain," he instructed the other, then looked at Mob. "And you'd better get home, kid. You don't want to get caught in the downpour."

He nodded slowly in reply. He watched as they took two pots of chrysanthemums a piece, but his eyes were drawn back home, and he could only stare for a moment.

Maybe it was the coming storm, but something about it did not feel nice.

.

 **A/N:**

I enter the Spirits and Such Consultation Office

Mob: absent  
Reigen: noncompliant  
Truths: infuriating

I FORCEFULLY PIN REIGEN AGAINST THE WALL.


	14. Peach Skin Pink Heart Red Blood

**A/N:** Changing the story rating with this chapter, because I think the violence is a little too much for just K+.

.

"What gives _you_ the right to say anything?"

Reigen felt like icy thorns were threading into his ribcage. His heart, even as it beat hysterically, had the sensation that the thorns were death trying to squeeze it cold, and Reigen wanted to squirm against the terrible feeling, but Teru held him firm. He spread his hands out, and the thorns inside Reigen were now like fingernails running the length of his internal flesh, and the feeling was so utterly disgusting a sour taste stung the back of Reigen's throat.

"You don't know anything," Teru continued, his voice low and dark like a growl. "Who are you? A simple human! You're not special! You don't know what it's like!"

Maybe not in the exact way Teru did, but Reigen had to pretend like he knew. And if he had time and space to think over the drumming of his heart, he might have thought of something wiser, but in the end, he said (or practically croaked):

"You're… You're human, too."

Teru did not want to hurt Reigen—really. He just wanted to teach him a lesson—show him who's boss! make a point!—and if that involved forgetting the mild discomfort of brushing energy inside his ribs and instead locking his fingers around his windpipe, well…

"Don't you dare compare me to you!" Teru really did snarl this time, but Reigen reacted more to the thumbs digging into his throat than the tone of his voice. "I am a greater being—a king among men! I'm not a human, I'm _special!"_

Reigen gagged and choked for air as Teru's thumbs grounded into his trachea. He tried to claw them away, but Teru's powers held him flat against the wall and unable to move. Tears began to spill from his eyes as all he could do to react to the pain was mewl, and Teru looked like he wanted to laugh.

"Look at you! Unable to talk, and you're basically an animal!"

A word came into the room then. It came soft, and hurt, like a fawn approaching it's dying mother.

"Shishou?"

Teru's head whipped sideways. Mob stood an inch or so outside the doorway, so visibly upset his face looked as white as a china plate. His little body shook ever so lightly in his long raincoat. He flinched when Reigen made such an effort to speak that he spat and heaved, Teru grimacing as it splattered his face. Reigen could only see Mob out of the corner of his eye, but he hoped _something_ communicated what he wanted to say.

 _Run._

Mob did not run, however. He spent another moment in the frozen confusion glancing between Reigen on the wall and Teru in attack with eyes bright and wide as Mason jar lights, until he rested his attention on Teru.

"Why are you doing that?" he demanded, but it came out more as a high squeak. "You're hurting him!"

Mob reached out his hand and moved forward. Teru thought maybe he was going to come at him with his own psychic powers, but before he had the mind to let Reigen free and turn to face Mob, he was there, and it was too late.

But… Teru did not feel the hot clash of psychic powers contacting his own. Instead, fingers not even strong enough to bruise locked around his joint hands, clawing back as they futilely tried to move them.

Teru could only stare in all-consuming shock as Mob fought with all his little might to force Teru away from Reigen. He was already breathing heavily, and his quivering hands were so weak even he had to see it was pointless trying to pull Teru away, and yet… a-and yet he still did not use a _fragment_ of his psychic powers. Rather, he did _this._ It didn't make sense at all.

Teru jerked away in sheer horror. Reigen tumbled from the wall to his knees, clutching at his throat and coughing violently. Mob tended to him instantly, not knowing exactly what to do, but trying to pat and look him over to see if he was okay. Teru's legs hit the edge of the distant table, and the resulting noise seemed to make Reigen forget all his personal aliments and shoved Mob back. He had the will to lift his head, and he made sure Teru met his eyes.

They held the worst accusation in them. Reigen was not angry, precisely—no, it was more thought out than that. Protectiveness lied in the way he shielded Mob and watched Teru while making him know he did wrong in his disappointed expression—that's what it was! Disappointment. Reigen was disappointed that Teru had been moved so easily to violence.

Mob did not look the least bit afraid.

Teru had shown some sort of weakness by backing away from the fight, and that made Mob more worried than anything. Normally, Teru would have cursed himself for being so vulnerable, but in the wake of recent events, he did not feel up to it.

 _It didn't make sense._ It didn't make sense why Mob came at him so readily without his psychic powers—why he clearly had them, and his first instinct to save Reigen was not to use them. I didn't make sense why, after it all, he just stood there, sympathy on his face and no indication he was going to retaliate. Why he allowed someone else so incredibly inept try to protect him. Teru nor the silence could answer, so he had to wonder:

"Why?"

Teru did not know exactly what to say. Mob did not know exactly how to answer. He stiffened and flushed a little, questioning the question.

"Why?"

"Why did you not use your psychic powers?" Teru did not know how he looked, but his brain was so hot he felt half-numb. "Why?"

Now it was out there. Reigen could only partially watch as Mob fumbled with it, his posture and words a mess as he slipped over an explanation.

"Oh, I don't know exactly why," Mob almost mumbled. "I-I guess it's because Shishou told me not to use my powers against other people… I've tried to change from doing that."

Mob seemed to glow as he spoke the realization. He stood a little straighter, and Reigen decided he would have to treat him to something later, but now was definitely not the time to think of praises.

"I want to be good at other things," Mob continued, "so I don't like using my psychic powers."

Teru hesitated. Then, the violence was back, and he lashed out with his words this time.

"What are you talking about? People can't change!"

Reigen visibly tensed at Teru's renewed anger, but Mob was not as moved. He remained calm and simply cocked his head, speaking in kindness and wonder, like the moon may have in different times to draw in the ocean.

"People change all the time. You are not the same as you were this morning, are you?"

Teru moved to reply and stopped. He stopped and thought.

Was he the same as he was? Certainly not, for in the morning he had the desire to confront Mob, and with that action completed it was not part of his heart anymore. All he had now was a raw space that left him a little scared, and the thoughts to accompany it.

Mob did not have some disgusting, warped view of self-worth. He had come to accept his pitfalls and minimal accomplishments in a way Teru could only marvel at; he accepted that his psychic powers did not make him a better to his fellow man. His survival and happiness did not depend on whether or not he had psychic powers or a special talent to be admired. He simply strived to be the best person he could. And Teru's comprehension of everything that had occurred meant:

"No…" Teru said softly, and he raised his head to look out the window towards the graveyard, where the rain now fell amongst the headstones. "I suppose I'm not the same."

Reigen was too focused on Teru to notice Mob move from behind him until he was just out of grasp to stop him. Mob had his own agenda, anyway, and when he did, it was wise to go along with it. Reigen always tried to guide Mob, but in the end, he knew what he was doing and often what was best.

"Hanazawa-kun," Mob paused before him and began rather slowly, and Teru's gaze lingered for a moment longer on the dreary scape of the graveyard. "I don't want to fight with you. I want to be your friend."

No matter the cost, Mob almost always returned to his innate compassion. He believed in the good of people. The surprise to such humanity in another shocked Teru from that little blister of fear and inadequacy that had grown on his heart. Not very experienced in communicating companionship, Mob offered his hand, albeit awkwardly.

"If you want to change, you can, Hanazawa-kun. You can make yourself someone you like to be."

Teru stared at Mob's hand given with such generosity. Then, with a little mutter of bubble-like laughter he joined their hands, the contact between them somehow more violent than their first, yet also more beautiful and heartfelt. Emotion sparkled about them.

Friendship.

"Okay."

What else could he say?

.

 **A/N:** Sorry this chapter took so long !


	15. Change Means Leaving Things Behind

**A/N:** Mob is ornery: a chapter.

.

Mob looked down from his window nook.

"Shishou?"

Reigen leaned back in his chair to indicate he was listening. "Hum?"

"Why didn't you use your psychic powers against Hanazawa-kun?"

Miraculously, Reigen's pen somehow flipped out of his hand in a way that suggested he actually did have psychic powers. He stammered, and he shivered in his seat like spiders were crawling up his spine, the display extinguished with a loud cough and the placement of his pen back onto the desk via Mob floating it there.

"He caught me off guard!" Reigen ruffled through excuses like a deck of cards. "And, like I taught you, it's not good to use your psychic powers against other people! I didn't want to hurt him! At my level, sometimes it's hard to control how much you put out! Like a champagne bottle, alright?"

Mob let Reigen ramble on. He turned back to the window, a small smile touching his lips.

.

Mob yawned, rubbed under his eye, and used the railing to guide him down the stairs. He instinctively turned towards the kitchen to go searching for his waffles and milk, but the sound of a warm voice stopped him and drew him the other way.

"I can have them put you into extra consideration, if you'd like."

He would know the voice of Reigen's mother anywhere. Even in his early-morning lethargy, he pattered towards the office to greet her, and he heard the deeper voice of Reigen reply to her statement.

"When are they planning on moving?"

Mob halted outside the doorway. Reigen's mother sat before the desk in a customer's chair, her purse much too large for her needs (but very fashionable!) hooked over the back. To Mob (and most) she always had looked almost frighteningly young, like she was secretly Reigen's sister instead of his mother, and her childish way of illuminating when she spoke highlighted the discrepancy.

"Very soon!" She fanned out her perfectly oval, red nails in a more effeminate version of her son's quick and unnecessary hand gestures. "They already found a house, I believe. And they are due to have the baby in a few weeks! The older children are very excited about it."

Reigen nodded like he was listening to his mother fawn over the cuteness of the children, making a quick note in his pad of paper.

"I'll give them a call to check out the apartment."

"It really is a great place, Arataka!"

Warning piqued in Mob rigidly. He felted excluded, and betrayed, for reasons he did not yet know.

"Shishou?"

Reigen's mother reacted faster than Reigen casually raising his head. She whipped around in her chair, her eyes bright and aglow as if stars hung in them.

She threw out her arms for a hug. "My dear, sweet Mob!"

A wall of mistrust and misunderstanding buffeted the doorway. Mob did not move, although he may have wanted to. Reigen's mother's expression fell as she read his mood, and he felt awful about hurting her, but he had to know:

"What were you talking about?"

Reigen and his mother shared the briefest of glances. She looked as if she had anticipated something like this to come of their conversation from Mob, and Reigen sighed at her foresight, tucking his pen into the loop in the paper pad and folding his hands atop.

"Mob," he began, chillingly calm compared to his usual self. "You know we did not plan on staying here forever. And now I don't think it's safe for you anymore. I think it's best if we consider moving."

A clock ticked in the hollow silence. A terrible feeling engulfed Mob as suddenly as a car crash.

Panic.

"No!" Mob shouted so unexpectedly loud that Reigen winced. "No, we can't move!"

Something like ice and needles seared his nerves and clouded his brain. The umbrella bucket in the entry way flipped upside-down, the door to the closet swinging open violently and startling Reigen and his mother. Mob balled his hands and clutched at his chest, small and scared and powerless against circumstances he could not control.

How could Reigen say that? This was it: this house was his _home._ Reigen spoke as if the place was not his home, as if he thought they once had plans to leave for the same reason. Reigen years ago had wanted to work his way up the corporate ladder and find a fancier space, while Mob had the expectation to leave once he found his birth family: his true home. But now, after so long, everything had changed: the house was home because it had the memory of Tome-san and the graveyard he wanted to protect; it had Ritsu and their time together; and it had… Reigen. If he had to leave Reigen just like that—just like his other family—he wouldn't be able to take it.

An abrupt sob welled in Mob's throat. Reigen's mother moved with such quick and practiced fluidity that the chair she rose from did not make a sound, and she already had Mob scooped close to her chest when he started to cry. He was almost too big for her to pick up now, but she made due by kneeling to his level. She shot her son a rather nasty look, and Reigen went stiff as he had unwelcome flashbacks from childhood.

"I told you that you should have asked him first," she scolded Reigen like he was in elementary school once again.

"I want to protect him!" Reigen defended his actions. "Having the graveyard around seems to put him at risk, but God—I guess I should have."

Mob tried to shush his sniveling so he could stop staining the pretty blouse of Reigen's mother. She rubbed across his back soothingly, and Reigen came around from the desk wanting to apologize, but not really knowing how to go about it.

"Sorry, Mob." He figured that was a start. "I just don't want something happening to you because bad spirits and bad people come around."

"Then you would not run the business you do," his mother had to add in something smart. Reigen nearly collapsed and tripped over nothing, puffing up a moment later to confront her.

" _Mom— "_

"It's okay, Shishou."

Mob finally pulled away from Reigen's mother. He took a quivering breath to steady himself and wiped under his eyes to brush away the last of his tears.

"I know you want to keep me safe. But, I like living here, because I can use my psychic powers for good protecting the graveyard like Tome-san did. And like the dead in the graveyard, some people need me to help them, too. I like using my powers for that as well."

He looked at the rug and laced his fingers together.

"I… don't want to leave here like I did my other home."

Mob rubbed his thumbs together, hoping he vocalized his feelings properly. The atmosphere tangibly mellowed, and Reigen's posture with it, nodding in full understanding of what Mob needed.

"If that is what you want, then we won't move."

Mob nodded in response but once and stopped twiddling his thumbs. Reigen's mother smoothed down his bed-mussed hair as her last comfort, her voice equally as gentle.

"If Katsuya could handle it, I think Mob can too."

Reigen sputtered, "You didn't have that attitude a second ago!"

"Don't criticize your mother, Arataka!"

Reigen opened his mouth to counter, but another deadly glare shut him up and caused him to flush. Reigen's mother broke the persona as soon as he did and laughed. Mob smiled as Reigen flustered again and covered the offending upturn of his lips with his joined hands.

.

"Ritsu, this is Hanazawa-kun. He is a psychic like I am."

Teru waved, and Ritsu returned the gesture—smiled, and played the part. Mob looked pleased that they got along so readily.

"Hanazawa-kun wants to go to the movies with us. Is that okay, Ritsu?"

Of course—of course it was okay! There was no reason it wouldn't be. Mob's eyes got a little sparkle in them as Ritsu agreed. He could not see how dark Ritsu felt inside.

For as long as they had known each other, Mob had tried to teach Ritsu how to harness the psychic powers he knew by now he did not have. And, out of nowhere, there was another? Like it meant nothing?

It wasn't fair.

.

 **A/N:** Poor Mob, associating leaving a house with leaving people.


	16. Spirits and Secrets

**A/N:** A pretty important announcement: Hi folks! Ya girl here decided to take two writing courses next semester, so this fic may have to take the back burner for a while! I may take some days left of my winter break to binge-write, so if the updates increase but the quality decreases, you know why.

We're in the home stretch now!

.

If anyone noticed Teru and Mob's new friendship, they did not seem concerned about it.

No comment was made about the transfer student's habit of walking home with Mob, or his tendency to cut his conversation with whoever else when Mob walked by. To them, Mob still blended in, and the sociable personality of Teru always appeared much more interesting.

Mob hoped at least Tsubomi-chan would notice.

But, alas, she remained as distant and unconcerned as ever. A friend that ran more in her circle of peers did not impress her, and Mob's heart would drop when she completely bypassed him to greet Teru and the girl or boy he was talking to. Teru would say later not to lose heart—that, someday, their paths would cross again, and she could recognize Mob as the amazing person he was.

Mob would just have to try something else to get her attention.

.

Mob fluttered from the cusp of sleep when he heard the rice cooker click on and smelled the hot steam as it began to waft up from the kitchen.

"Good morning! And what a lovely morning it is!"

Something like a small, glowing shopping bag darted towards his head. Mob blinked slowly as the thing appeared to grin at him with big teeth and purple lips, the top bit of it waving like a candle as it moved.

"Sleep well?"

It even spoke. Mob sat up and rubbed his eyes, the bag-like apparition floating from the floor to his face as he lowered his hands. He stared at it for a moment more before he decided what it was, and Mob took to grabbing it by the top bit and beating it against his floor.

"Wait! Wait!" the thing cried. "Please, stop!"

Mob stopped at its request. It managed to rise from the floor like a puttering bee, mumbling some words of pain and rubbing at its poor injured face.

"What was that for?" it demanded, giving Mob an accusatory look.

"I was trying to exorcised you," Mob replied unapologetically. "I don't like evil spirits around my house."

"Wait!" the spirit repeated his plea as Mob raised his hand to do away with him. "I came here to apologize!"

That got Mob interested enough to drop his hand. The spirit took long gulps of air he most certainly did not need and dusted off his chest (? Face?), clearing his throat and straightening up as best as something of his shape could.

"I want to apologize for putting you in danger, and for hurting your Grandma."

Mob cocked his head. The spirit flapped his little arms in frustration, spouting words like how a rooster crows.

"Don't you remember that night at the gate? You nearly sent me into oblivion! But, somehow I managed to pull some of myself together to… this state."

Yes, of course Mob remembered. He nodded and cast his eyes down to stare at his fingers outspread on his blanket.

"I had to protect the graveyard," Mob's voice hushed into something silky and soft. "And it made me really upset that Tome-san was gone."

"Yes, yes." The spirit tapped one of the red dots on his cheek sagely. "I underestimated you. I'm sorry for that too. But!"

The spirit opened up his arms and swung to the other side of Mob.

"That is all in the past! I think it's time for us to turn over a new leaf!"

Mob circled his head to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Everyone has a dream," the spirit explained. "To be an idol, a movie star, an astronaut! My dream is to gain as much power as possible! I want to be a god!"

The theatric reflection did nothing to shake Mob's blank expression. "You're not doing a good job convincing me not to exorcise you."

"Let me finish!" The spirit motioned with his hands hastily. "I think it would be a good idea if we team up! We could be partners, so to speak! Rising to the status of gods will be much easier if we work together—Mob-kun, was it?"

Mob slipped out from under the blanket, doing his daily routine of rolling up his futon like the proposition was as trivial as deciding what channel to watch.

"I'm not interested. I think I'll just exorcise you."

"No, Mob-kun!" The spirit looked as if he wanted to cry and shielded his cranium. "I don't want to disappear! Not existing isn't any fun, you know! If you let me be, I promise I won't do any more bad things!"

Mob paused from tucking his futon in the closet. "You promise?"

The spirit hesitated, blinking like he could not believe that had actually worked.

"Ah… Yes! I promise I will not do any bad things from now on!"

"Okay." Mob slid the closet door closed. "I'll see what Shishou thinks."

"Shishou?" The spirit hovered over the door. "You mean that guy in the pink jumpsuit isn't your dad?"

.

"Mob!" Reigen was, in fact, in the powder pink sweatsuit he used for pajamas. "You're just in time. The rice is almost done."

Mob stayed in the kitchen threshold. "Shishou, there's a spirit haunting me."

Reigen turned around from the rice cooker. The inquisitive quirk did not leave his lips as he looked from Mob, to the space around him, to Mob again, one eyebrow raising as Mob just stood there with no expression.

"Hum?"

"I was wondering what I should do with him."

"Ah, the spirit must be too weak for me to see," Reigen concluded. "You can handle those small fry on your own, can't you?"

"Yeah…" Mob took a step into the kitchen. "I can."

"Now, pick out what you want to put on your rice." Reigen brushed off the topic altogether as the rice cooker chimed. "And decide if you want apples or pears in your bento."

"Yes, Shishou."

.

"Huh?" Teru leaned on his hip. "Is that your new pet, Mob-kun?"

" _Pet?"_ The very much not ferocious little green spirit challenged. "I'll have you know I am The Almighty Dimple! I am going to be a god someday!"

"No," Mob spoke over the fuming Dimple. "It's an evil spirit."

"I can exorcise it for you," Teru offered. He lifted his finger, and Dimple looked so ready to fight that his aura quivered. Mob pushed the two apart by waving Dimple behind him.

"He said that he's not going to do any bad things, so I'm letting him stick around."

"Your kindness baffled me, Mob-kun." Teru laughed and pushed back his bangs. "But, if it's what you want, I won't question it."

They chatted for a while, and Teru bid Mob farewell, continuing towards the school with his bag slung over one shoulder. Dimple sighed deeply and rubbed at his cheeks.

"Jeez, how many psychics does this town have?"

Mob made his own way towards the school. "The only ones I know are Hanazawa-kun and Shishou."

"You actually believe that guardian of yours is a _real psychic?_ He's more of a con artist!"

A brief, dangerous glint crossed Mob's eyes.

"Don't make me exorcise you."

Dimple decided not to bring up Reigen's credentials again.

.

"What? You mean you've never heard of Keiji Mogami?"

Mob paused munching on his snack of gram crackers and milk.

"No."

" _All_ spirits know about him—wait, I'm getting ahead of myself."

Dimple flickered to rest, a dark look shadowing his face.

"Long ago, there was a mystic named Keiji Mogami…"

Mob picked up his milk. "There's no need to be so melodramatic."

"Let me tell the story, Mob-kun!" Dimple puffed up, then chilled with the look of Mob's icy eyes. He smoothed his ruffled feathers and began again:

"Centuries ago, there was a powerful mystic named Keiji Mogami—a psychic like you, Mob-kun. He would do the deed of exorcising evil spirits for people, but along the way, he became twisted himself. He began to absorb the energy of evil spirits, so that when he died, he would become an evil spirit too. For many years he led the evil spirits of the world, until a band of monks worked together to seal him away for all of eternity."

Mob popped the straw out of his mouth. "So he became an evil spirit himself and hurt the world around him."

"Yes, but that is not the important bit!" Dimple swung closer. "It's rumored that whoever finds his resting place can gain access to his power! Imagine it! The power to rule over all the evil spirits in the world!"

"Ah," Mob hummed. "So that's why you wanted into the graveyard."

"Yeah, but I had a look around, and there's not much there." Dimple waved his hand. "Just the usual old souls wasting away in the ground."

"And," Mob added, "you promised me you would not do bad things, so there is no need for you to have that power."

If Dimple had blood, he may have flushed, but all he could do was protest.

"Don't you trust me? Wouldn't you rather me have that power than an _actual_ evil spirit?"

He supposed he would, yes. But Dimple did not have to know that, and it was rather humorous watching him sulk and grumble as he bobbed about. Mob dunked another gram cracker in his milk and watched Dimple continue to complain, yet despite all the distractions, his mind wandered, and he was taken back to the day he found the plate in the ground and Serizawa guarding the tunnel.

 _Something terrible rests here._

.

 **A/N:** I had a ten minute conversation with my mom about whether or not you can smell a rice cooker cooking rice.


	17. Another World

"Hey, Mob?" Reigen flipped through his calendar marked with days he was supposed to meet clients and birthdays of family members. "Since you're starting junior high school soon, do you want to do something special to celebrate?"

Mob had not thought of that. He looked up from the book in his lap.

"Like what?"

"We can do something simple," Reigen offered. "Like going out to dinner and inviting Mom along, or Teru and Ritsu."

"Hanazawa-kun is going to a different school next year," Mob recollected Teru telling him that he was going to attend Black Vinegar Private School. "I haven't seen Ritsu in a while."

"He came over last week, didn't he?" Reigen smoothed out the cover of the calendar.

"Yes…" Mob confirmed, leaning on his elbow to look out the window towards the graveyard, where Dimple appeared to be chasing a stray evil spirit between the bars of the fence (he saved Mob some trouble, at least). "He didn't stay very long. And he didn't act very happy to see me."

Mob watched Dimple snatch the spirit by the tail end.

"I hope he's alright."

.

It wasn't fair.

 _It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair._

Ritsu's arm shifted painfully as his schoolbag was ripped off his arm. The high schooler slung it to his friend behind him, who took to dumping it out immediately. All of Ritsu's workbooks and pens clattered to the damp alleyway asphalt, and Ritsu made a point to act like he never cared about them anyway. The high schooler blocking him from scrambling towards his things leaned back a bit from towering over Ritsu.

"Did you find anything?"

The other grinned as he found the change purse: a little monkey with a zipper mouth, stuffed fat with coins for snacks. He tossed it into the air and snatched it back, tucking it into his pocket for safe keeping. He ruffled through Ritsu's hollow bag to see if he missed something interesting and ended up plucking out the spoon from the very bottom.

"Aren't spoons made of silver?"

"Moron," his friend muttered. "It won't be worth anything if it's not with a set."

Ritsu glowered at the space over the high schooler's head. The sun was going down behind the distant building, and when the other high schooler kneeling amongst the contents of Ritsu's school bag held up and twirled the spoon to contemplate if it really was not worth anything, it glittered like a chime hung to blown in the breeze. The flashing light stung Ritsu's eyes, and his festering anger scorched his blood within the innermost parts of himself.

If Mob were here, this little ridiculous stunt would never have happened. If Mob were here, he would never have allowed Ritsu to be pushed in an alleyway to have his bag looted through. If Mob were here, he could just use psychic powers like he did the last time.

If Ritsu had psychic powers, he could take care of himself.

Ritsu scratched his nails and knuckles against the brick wall. The light from the spoon blazed like a half-eclipsed sun, and all Ritsu felt was fire.

It wasn't fair.

 _He_ wanted psychic powers too.

A muted crack echoed around the alleyway. Suddenly the high schooler screamed and dropped the spoon, and he cradled his one hand with his other like someone had crushed it and he could hardly bear to put pressure on it. His friend for the moment forgot about keeping Ritsu against the wall and went to him, although he was swearing enough that if Ritsu were any less unshakable he may have flushed.

"How could you have possible broken your hand?" The one high schooler deduced through the yelping and withering that his friend thought his hand was hurt. "You didn't do anything!"

"I said I don't know!"

"If you want to be such a baby, let's just leave," he snapped back. "We got what we wanted."

With some tugging and a lot more swearing, the larger high schooler muscled his injured friend out of the alleyway and out of sight. Ritsu hesitated a moment before slowly inching from the wall, left with the disheveled papers and the fallen spoon somehow bent in the middle.

.

Tome Kurata would insist that she was not nosy.

She was just always in the right place at the right time to hear interesting things she had to know more about. Like when she was walking to meet her friends in their chosen lunch spot and heard two of the lower classmen girls chatting behind her.

"That weird boy from Salt Elementary is in my class," the first half-whispered.

"Who?"

"You know, the one who claimed he was a psychic in elementary school."

That got Tome's attention. Her ears practically twitched.

"Oh, Mob-kun?" the second replied. "I haven't talked to him since third grade. Did he go all the way through school with us?"

"You know, I don't remember…"

They turned off as they reached one of the school trees, debating whether the rumor about Mob making an eraser float was true. And Tome almost broke into a run, rushing up to Inugawa and Kijibayashi and Saruta so quickly they had only a moment to notice her approach.

Tome slammed her bento box down on the bench, "Inugawa!"

Inugawa nearly inhaled a cheese puff. He coughed violently and forced himself to swallow the unchewed and dried bits of cheese puff, his eyes watery and voice cracking.

"Y-Yeah?"

Tome put her arms on the bench like she was posed to leapfrog over it and leaned in close to Inugawa, eyes wicked and bright.

"You went to Salt Elementary School, right?"

Inugawa concluded his fit with a drink of juice. "Yes."

"Do you know someone named Mob?"

Inugawa cocked his head and pinched his chin. "I think so… Why?"

"I just heard the most wonderful thing, Inugawa!" Tome left his personal bubble to do a little twirl. "I heard that dear Mob might be an ESPer! Maybe he can use telepathy!"

"There she goes again," Saruta mumbled to Kijibayashi. "I thought that dream died when her application for a Telepathy Club got turned down again…"

"Saruta! Kijibayashi! Listen!" Tome pointed back and forth between the two. "We'll get it next year! I just know it!"

"Kamuro and Tokugawa are probably running for president and vice president next year, and they don't seem too keen on it either." Kijibayashi shrugged. "Especially Tokugawa."

He shivered thinking about the hard-faced student council member who never smiled. Tome whirled her finger to Inugawa.

"Inugawa, what can you tell me about Mob?"

Saruta and Kijibayashi slumped in disbelief. "She completely ignored us…"

"Well…" Inugawa continued nevertheless. "He was kind of famous in elementary school."

Tome switched places with her plunked bento box, snapping open her food and taking up her chopsticks to prepare for a story. She nudged into Inugawa's personal bubble again.

"Famous, but not popular," Inugawa recalled, Tome consuming every one of his words (and every one of her carrot slices). "He sort of always blended into the background; I never really noticed him. He was known to make things float on their own, and people thought he was some sort of supernatural being sent to play tricks on them because he lives near a graveyard. He also has this weird guardian who shows up to support him during school events."

Tome popped the chopsticks out of her mouth.

"So it's true…" she spoke with one full cheek. "He's an ESPer."

"I really don't know," Inugawa confessed. "I guess you'll have to ask him."

Tome went on the task alone, abandoning her bento (and then going back to finish it as quickly as possible) and trekking around the school with passion burning in her heart. Inugawa could not remember a more detailed description than Mob having a rather round and pale face and a bowlcut, and that caused Tome to mistake one of the school fence posts for him. Not disheartened, she had to wonder where someone seemingly so social awkward would spend his lunch, and that drew her into the school building and first year classrooms.

She just had to find a pale face and a bowlcut, a pale face and a bowlcut, a pale face and a bowlcut, a pale face—

He blended so well into the environment of the classroom that she almost did not notice him upon her first observation. In fact, she bypassed the room altogether, only noticing her mistake halfway down the hallway, and her excitement caused her to rush back and slam open the door and yell into the classroom.

"Mob-kun!"

He moved with such quick skittishness that Tome stood staring for a moment. He jumped from his desk to the wall, even abandoning his food to back away submissively.

"Y-Yes, Senpai?"

How rude of her! Tome did not mean to come off so harshly. She hastily corrected herself by holding her shoulders up and approaching him calmly.

"Apologizes, Mob-kun. I did not mean to startle you."

His composure relaxed some, but not enough. "It's alright…"

"And I have not even introduced myself! How impolite of me!" Tome was really trying to come off as friendly (and maybe overdoing it). "I am Tome Kurata of class 2-1!"

She flourished another twirl. "You can call me Tome-chan!"

Mob finally stepped away from the wall. "Tome-chan?" And, his eyes brightened. "How nice. That was my grandmother's name."

"Then it must be fate!" Tome slipped back to her usual self. "Fate for us to meet like this!"

Mob blinked.

"Let me explain." Tome waved a finger. "You are an ESPer, correct?"

"Well—I." Mob almost curled in on himself again. "Yeah…"

"And I have looked for someone like you all my life!" Tome held open her arms. "You see, I have always had a dream to contact life beyond this world—extraterrestrial beings! And what better way to do that than through telepathy?"

Tome propped up on a desk and swung her legs back and forth.

"Will you help me contact aliens, Mob-kun?"

.

 **A/N:** Me: I don't know if Ritsu really needs psychic powers in this story.

Me at Me: Then you have no reason to hurt him.


	18. Chasing Lost Voices

**A/N:** The truth is out there !

.

Mob did not know how he got into the situation—no, really. After Tome asked him to help her contact aliens, she went on to explain further how grand of a dream she had, and Tome had a way of absorbing any atmosphere or attention in a room that was not her own and that left Mob only able to watch her. In some convoluted way or another, she got him to give out his address and agree to host her there to try and contact aliens; all within the span of one lunch hour. At least she was friendly enough that Mob did not feel like he was threatened into it.

Unfortunately, Reigen would not be there to see it. He had a client that claimed a ghost would always come out of his vents right before sunset, and he really could not put off going to the grocery for another day, so that left him with his evening mostly occupied. Mob told him about having an acquaintance over, and although Reigen was reluctant, he figured if Mob trusted said acquaintance, they would be just fine alone.

And Dimple was there, too.

Or Mob thought he would be, but he seemed to be busy elsewhere for the evening as well. That left Mob alone until Tome came, in that awkward time space right before someone was going to arrive—he had waited for Teru and Ritsu to meet him before, but the expectation was not quite the same. Mob also did not know where exactly would be the best place to contact aliens from, but he knew the office was the best place to accommodate people in, and he waited there in his window nook, watching from the window as the light washed from the sky and the stars popped from the blue veil like silver fish from the dark sea.

Tome did not knock on the door so much as… kick it. Mob hurried to greet her, and upon opening the door, he saw her arms were full with an old transistor radio and desk lamp that had seen better days. The haphazard kookiness of her hanging the radio off her elbow and clutching the saucer-like lamp with both hands really suited her personality.

"Mob-kun!"

She greeted him first. Mob invited her in, and before he could offer her tea or a snack, she kicked off her high-tops in the entry way, some way or another knowing she was supposed to go into the office and rushing there. She was nothing but activity as she buzzed about and investigated the space, all the while speaking loud enough for Mob to hear her from the doorway where he watched.

"I'm going to teach you how my grandfather contacted aliens, Mob-kun!" Tome declared, finding an electrical outlet below his window nook. "Can I use this?"

Mob nodded.

"And can you turn out the light?"

Mob flicked off the lights, and the house fell dark.

"We need to make it easier for the aliens to find us! If they decide to," she clarified. She spread apart Mob's pillows and sat the desk lamp on the nook's ledge, allowing the light to show into the sky. "Like a beacon!"

Ah.

"But one thing about my grandfather…" Tome whirled around, the radio handle creaking as it swayed. "He never found out how to get his messages _off_ planet."

Oh.

"That's where you come in, Mob-kun!" Tome pointed skyward. "With your telepathy, you can help me project my message anywhere!"

Mob sheltered himself against the doorway. "Tome-senpai— "

"I told you, call me Tome-chan!"

"… Tome-chan," Mob tested the name on his tongue. "I don't know if I can."

"Now is not the time for doubts." Tome did not seem deterred. "Not when we are so close!"

Tome placed the radio on the table where Reigen met with clients, and her skirt fanned over her legs as she sat on her knees despite being on a chair. Although it was his house, Mob stepped forward into the oddly backlit office tentatively, and he sat down in the opposite chair as Tome clicked on the radio and messed with the dials.

"There's a certain channel," Tome explained while she worked. "Where if you—ah, there!"

The bits of music and static switched to a low humming. Tome pulled out the antenna all the way and looked to Mob with expectant eyes.

"Now it is all up to you! You can use the antenna to direct your telepathy and contact aliens!"

Was it possible to conduct psychic powers through a radio? Did psychic powers even work like radio waves? Mob didn't know. He hadn't heard Reigen or Teru mention anything similar. Although, it did appear that metal cutlery responded to psychic powers easily, and Mob figured that was similar. It was worth a try.

Mob did not know where he would grab the radio to do that, either, but the metal antenna would act as a good spoon substitute. He held the antenna between his thumb and forefinger around the base of it, right above where it would rotate. He swallowed, and hesitated, before he decided just to get on with it. He allowed a spark of his psychic powers to touch the rod.

Instead of bending, the antenna swung an inch leftward. That startled even Mob, and he let the antenna go, but Tome was vehement that he continue on, flapping her arms all over the place.

"No, no, that was something!" she insisted. "That was _something!"_

Mob's throat felt sore, and he swallowed again. Nevertheless, he held the antenna again upon Tome's persistence. He shot another spark into the rod.

The antenna tilted further leftward, and a sound crackled from the speakers:

"… Mrp…"

Tome's jaw dropped. It took a moment of awe before she slammed her hands on the table, nearly launching herself out of the chair.

"Did you hear that, Mob-kun? I think you got something!"

Only Mob heard the full word. Dimple appeared out of the wall from the direction of the antenna, the tip following his movements as he approached the table.

He repeated, "Mob-kun?"

"… Mrp…"

"There it is again!" Tome bounced in her seat. "They must be trying to communicate!"

Dimple eyed Tome and the radio critically. Even though it was not necessary, Dimple leaned in to whisper in Mob's ear, his eyes never leaning Tome who was practically weeping.

"Did a girl con you into trying to contact ghosts?"

"… C… Gh…"

Tome held her hands to her chest. "I can't believe this is actually happening!"

Mob shook his head. "Aliens."

"Yes!" Tome, who could not hear Dimple, agreed. "It's sure to be aliens!"

"All the same." Dimple formed arms just to shrug. "Did she promise you a date if you helped her?"

Mob shook his head again.

"You're just allowing yourself to be used, Mob-kun," Dimple sighed and held his forehead(?). "You're too kind! You shouldn't waste time using your powers for useless things."

"… Kn… U…"

Tome tossed up her hands. " _Wow!"_

Mob did not reply. It was not useless to Tome.

"Try moving the antenna again to see if you can get a clearer signal," Tome tapped the top of the radio. "Maybe we can get a full sentence!"

Dimple suddenly got a sly look on his face. Without warning, he slithered towards the radio, the antenna following him until he slipped into it. Mob saw Dimple move discreetly through the rod and between his fingers into the bulk of the radio, and how he moved the dial the smallest bit—enough that Tome did not notice it in the dark.

Violin music and a rich voice murmured from the radio, the quality like something that would come out of a gramophone. Tome leaned back as if in quiet horror as the long vocals in a foreign language filled the room and replaced whatever blips of noise that had interested her so. Her head drooped, and Mob felt tiny cracks hurting his heart, his fingers leaving the antenna to fall on the table.

"… Tome-chan?"

"… Do you know what this means, Mob-kun?" Tome asked, her voice thick and low. The cracks widened.

"Tome-chan— "

"This means aliens love German opera!" Tome cried, propelling herself forward in abrupt high spirits. She hoisted her upper body across the table to lean in closer to Mob.

"It must be something similar to what their language sounds like!"

Mob blinked in dull, flickering surprise. And if the front door had not opened, he may have remained like that forever with how much knowledge he had of what to do or what response to give after that. Reigen (not spacemen) saved him that distress when he came into the room, grocery bags in one arm and a pizza box in the other.

"I brought food for you and your friend!"

Reigen paused, his eyes adjusting enough to the dark to see a girl he did not recognize have a dreamy look in her eyes and her body leaned over the table to place face mere centimeters from Mob's.

"… What's going on here?"

.

Ritsu held the spoon almost like he was choking it.

Surely, the bent spoon from the incident with the high schoolers had to mean _something._ Spoons did not just bend on their own—Ritsu knew that better than anyone. His eyes darted from the bent spoon on his desk to the one in his grasp, which did not look like it wanted to move anytime soon. Ritsu's anger flared again.

"Just _bend already."_

Ritsu slammed the spoon on his desk as it refused. He shoved open his door and went downstairs, but he mellowed his composure halfway there so his mother would not worry. She was fixing something in the kitchen, and she looked towards him as he descended the stairs.

"The daifuku are almost done steaming, if you want one," she told him. "Your father wanted them as a snack for work tomorrow."

Maybe a sweet would do him good.

After a daifuku and cup of green tea and a game show episode with his parents, Ritsu decided he was cooled enough to return to his room. He really should have been focusing on the schoolwork he had to do, not worrying about whether or not he had bent the spoon and broken the high schooler's hand when it could have been something that was not as surreal as he thought.

But he could not let it go.

Ritsu settled in his chair and pulled it forward. He reached to grab his school book, but was stopped by the two spoons. The one he had thrown had landed beside the other, and a very prominent curl in the handle forced it to face backwards.

Was it because he acted out in violence?

.

 **A/N:** Give Reigen a backstory? More like give Tome a backstory, amiright.

Also, happy birthday to me! :


	19. Bittersweet

**A/N:** *draws own fanart* Perfect.

If you want to see Tome-chan in her outfit from the last chapter, check out my tumblr ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!

.

Mob turned his face towards the steam rising from his ramen bowl.

"Hanazawa-kun?"

Teru stopped mixing his noodles together (he always got impatient and ate everything else first).

"What is it, Mob-kun?"

Mob felt the heat from the steam brush his cheeks.

"How do you… get girls to like you?"

Teru hesitated. Then, he snorted, and he covered his offending mouth.

"Do you like someone, Mob-kun?" he asked, amused, through his hand. "A girl?"

Mob slinked deep into his collar, muttering softly, "Maybe…"

"Poor guy…" Teru sighed, picking up a ball of noodles. "Caught up in the bittersweet taste of love."

He chewed on his noodles thoughtfully, trying to decide what the best answer to give was.

"Well… What does she like? You can try to appeal to her that way."

Mob flushed deeper. He thought of Tsubomi-chan, and how much praise she always gave to the boys who won races or did well in gym class. Because of that, he had not had the courage to speak to her in years.

Mob hardly whispered:

"Muscles…"

.

"Welcome to the Body Improvement Club!"

The captain clasped Mob on the back, and he jolted to attention. The other members eagerly circled around them.

"It's great to have you!"

.

Ritsu looked both ways before crossing the street. He walked to the other side of the road in long strides, and his heartbeat kicked up as he approached the graveyard gate. He had been here so many times now, and yet for the first time the fence posts reminded him of something violent, like cactus spikes or teeth, and the gate a monstrous mouth. He had a fleeting want for Mob to be there with him. But, he knew Mob would not be back from his club activities for a few more minutes, so he had to go alone, entering passed the gate doors appearing like lips ready to chew him open and uncover all the secrets he had inside.

Ritsu clutched his schoolbag close, where under all his papers the two bent spoons resided. He wanted to ask Mob about them, but when Mob would come Ritsu was not sure how he would begin—saying, with proof, that the spoons _had_ to mean something—and that left him frustrated.

Bending spoons could not mean anything but having psychic powers, right?

The uncertainty was what was heavy and frightening. Ritsu tried to shake the feeling by walking towards the shrine. A green scrap of littered balloon hung from one of its ordinate arches, and Ritsu scowled.

No… Not a balloon.

The thing turned, and had a face. Ritsu stared at it for a moment, and it blinked in return. It floated like a dandelion seed on the breeze and dropped an inch down from the arch to examine Ritsu closer.

"Can you see me?"

It spoke! Unprecedented, for sure. Ritsu was too involved in his feeling of shock to decide if it would be wiser to deny if he could, but the thing answered for him, swooping close to Ritsu's face with a grin.

"You can!" the thing confirmed with Ritsu's unmoving gaze. "That's— "

Ritsu reacted, and he swatted the thing away like a bee that had flown too near his face. It fell to the grass without even the satisfaction of a thud, but Ritsu did not care, instead going towards it with an aggressive instinct he did not know he had.

"Wait!" the thing cried, turning away its face as Ritsu raised his foot to stomp on it. "Don't hurt me! I'm a friend of Mob's!"

That possibility at least got Ritsu to pause. The thing zipped up from the ground before Ritsu could change his mind, rubbing the red-spotted cheek Ritsu had hit so hard.

"I'm not just some evil spirit!" it complained and rubbed both cheeks now with arms Ritsu was sure it did not have before. "I help protect the graveyard!"

It tried to flex with its little wisps for arms. Not impressed or convinced, Ritsu's expression hallowed.

"An evil spirit?"

 _"Not_ an evil spirit!" It shivered. "I'm Dimple! Mob and I are friends!"

"I doubt Nii-san would allow an evil spirit around the graveyard." Ritsu's darkness did not disperse. "He is pretty protective of this place."

"If I wasn't allowed here, I wouldn't be able to get in, or be exorcised already," Dimple pointed out. Fair, but:

"I did not come here to talk to you," Ritsu snubbed Dimple entirely; he put his bag on the shrine stair and sat down. "I came to talk to Nii-san."

"Ah…" Dimple smirked. "About your psychic powers, right?"

Ritsu's head whipped towards Dimple. He smiled again and floated closer to Ritsu—although, this time, not close enough for him to reach.

"You're so predictable," he sighed and held up his arms. "Every time you come over it's the same thing: Bend this! Float that! Teach me how to do too! You try to pretend that one day you will have something you never can."

Ritsu's hair stood on end. Before he could lash out again, Dimple swung back, arms wide.

"But that has changed!" he cheered. "Somehow, you must have awakened your psychic powers! Seeing me is proof enough of that."

For sure? The reality was almost too much. Ritsu could only freeze in awe, and Dimple laughed.

"You finally got them! Congrats! Now you just need to learn how to control them!"

Dimple pointed at himself, "And I'm just they guy to do it!"

"B-But…" Ritsu's words were croaked, and automatic. "I wanted Nii-san to help me…"

"Come _on."_ Dimple waved his hand. "Has he been able to help you yet? Sometimes, Mob has trouble controlling his _own_ powers, you know."

Although Dimple may have been referring to the time he was beaten, Ritsu was taken back to his own frightening day, when Mob had become the terrible thing that resided within and thrown him through a gravestone. Ritsu's hair rose again, and Dimple took his fearful expression as an opportunity.

"While _I_ have years of experience!" He pointed with both thumbs this time. "If you let me take over your body— "

Ritsu became immediately serious. "Take over my body?"

"Not like that, Ricchan!" Dimple panicked to correct himself. "I mean— "

"Don't call me that."

"Not like that, Ritsu." Dimple tried again. "I mean if you let me enter your body, I can help your psychic powers to awaken further! They have lied dormant until now, so your full potential is probably not reached yet."

Dimple dared to move closer to Ritsu.

"So? What do you say?"

Ever thoughtful, Ritsu forced himself to consider his options.

To awaken his psychic powers! It was all Ritsu had ever dreamed. Of course, when he was young, he thought it was as easy as Mob made it seem, but over the years he learned—painfully—that such talent was not that cheap. It was a born trait, or so it seemed: one that kept Mob just out of Ritsu's reach no matter what he did. Psychic powers were a blessing Mob at times disliked so immensely and Ritsu wanted so desperately that Ritsu sometimes thought he hated the one he had loved enough as a child to call him his older brother, but now…

Ritsu did not have to feel like he was a lesser.

"… Okay." The prickle of need stung the back of Ritsu's tongue as he spoke. "I'll let you teach me."

Dimple smiled like a snake before it swallowed a mouse. He held out his hand to shake, but just as quickly retracted it, dashing with newfound speed to the shadows of the shrine.

"Ritsu!"

Mob waved from the graveyard gate. The spell of fulfilled daydreams and easy choices dropped its veil, and Ritsu found himself blinking against the sunlight. Mob met him at the stair, where Ritsu looked lost in space like Tome sometimes got watching the night sky.

"I hope you did not have to wait too long… Are you okay?"

"Hum?" Ritsu looked up to Mob's face. "Oh, yes."

He took his bag, and stood from the stair. A weird sort of conflict pulled in him, with one half humming claims of betrayal and the other demanding silence. In the end, the latter won out, and Ritsu simple smiled, the intuition to be forgotten like the spoons in his bag.

"Just tired is all. You don't have to worry about me, Nii-san!"

.

The man watched.

He watched as the boy entertained himself by making pop bottles float. He watched as the green little spirit with him exited his body. He did not know why the spirit did not stay—did not know the spirit was too weak to do anything—but it did not matter. What mattered was the boy, and the pattern the man had observed of him coming to the graveyard.

He just had to find the perfect moment to strike.


	20. Returned

**A/N:** The older brother bows.

.

Click.

"Koyama?"

"Yeah?"

"Your last report was ten minutes ago… What's keeping you?"

"I'm watching. The kid is still just messing around with his powers, and it's amusing."

"You are the one messing around, Koyama. Hurry up and get him already."

He hung up without the courtesy of a goodbye. The man grumbled and shoved the phone back into his jacket pocket. He waited a moment longer before he took a step and dropped off the building to the ground below.

.

Ritsu smoothed the spoon back to its curved shape. Dimple spoke in a misplaced voice somewhere inside Ritsu.

"You're getting better!" he congratulated. "Now you can better control the output of your powers—with my help, of course."

Dimple had the sense that Ritsu was preparing to eject him out of his body. He quickly moved along, to the other bent silverware near the shrine stairs.

"You should try to do them all next! Focusing on one thing is easy. You need to practice doing many things with your powers at once."

Ritsu reached out his hands to the quirked spoons and forks. A light silver aura shimmered around them, but Ritsu never got the chance to bend them back.

"It's been a while, Kageyama."

A man stood on the path to the shrine. Even in the hot glare of the sun, he kept his hood up and face shadowed, the smallest indication of him even having a face coming from the glint across his eyes and metal piercings. He kicked a rock off the path with his boot, and his head leaned to the side.

"What're you doing? Playing with spoons?"

Ritsu was not stupid. He knew the man did not come for no reason. He backed away.

"Don't tell me you're going to try to run again," the man sighed and shook his head. "You've caused me enough trouble as it is."

"Oh, this is bad!" Even Dimple fretted. "That's an adult ESPer!"

If the unkind red-brown aura that circled him was anything to go by, Ritsu would have to agree. And although his heart had begun to flutter, the fear that burned like ice had not reached his limbs or his brain, so with the courage he had left, he thought, and tried to remain as innocent as possible.

"You must have the wrong person," Ritsu said—not hatefully, not fearfully, but simply— "I have never seen you before in my life."

The man chuckled. Not swayed, he raised his arms and shrugged.

"I suppose it would be asking too much for you to remember me. You were very young when we first met."

He walked closer. With every step, Ritsu took one away, until he was nearly backed against the shrine.

"Now… Are you going to try to throw me into a building again, Shigeo?"

.

"Mob-kun…" Tome practically whined. She stared at the sky while she walked, and although it was reasonability too warm, she wore her new sweatshirt with an alien eating a pizza on it; Mob had bought one, too, that said 'Milky Way', and it had a milk cartoon surrounded by stars. He kept his in the bag that Tome swung to and fro.

"You know what's not fair? That so many people see UFOs at night. My mom won't let me stay up long enough to look for them."

Before he could answer, she almost smacked him with the shopping bag as she looped her arm around his shoulders.

"We should try to contact aliens again!" Tome winked and gave a thumbs up. "We were so successful last time! Maybe we can get a full message if we try again!"

"Sure, Tome-chan," Mob agreed after a moment. "Although, I should tell Shishou beforehand."

It was too awkward last time trying to explain to Reigen what was happening. (Reigen sought to allow Mob as much freedom as he could, but he was also protective, and that made him not eager to believe Tome was so close to Mob's face because of _aliens_ ). Tome hummed in understanding and took her arm away from Mob.

"We should do it next Saturday!" Tome apparently needed both her arms to gesture. "My mom's birthday is on Sunday, but I think I can pencil you in…"

.

Shigeo?

The man grasped Ritsu by the hair and slammed him into the ground. The force was enough to knock Dimple out of Ritsu's body, and the spirit spun dizzily in the air from the impact. The man rubbed Ritsu's face into the broken dirt, and he leaned down to speak into his ear.

"Not so fun when you're on the receiving end, huh? Are you not even going to give me a fight this time? How boring."

Dimple finally stilled and got his wits about him. He saw the man lift Ritsu's face from the ground; Ritsu's nose streamed blood, and he spat dirt from his mouth. Ritsu tried to turn around and fight back, but the man slammed him down again, enough that the breath was lost from his lungs.

"Come _on,"_ the man groaned, and leaned his elbow on one of his knees. "There's no need to be so pathetic."

Dimple had to act—do _something_. He did not consider how he could just leave, say he was somewhere else, not get wrapped up in whatever trouble had found Ritsu. Instead, he reacted, and the wind swirled around him as he grew to his full size.

The man did not seem fazed by the little green spirit that had turned into a hulking monster. He looked over lazily, where Dimple stood with his arms crossed.

"I had not planned on showing my true form so soon," Dimple said in a much deeper voice than before.

Dimple did not get a chance to make a move or speak again. A hole formed in his middle, and the man lowered his arm as the spirit dispersed into the air, unimpressed about Dimple's attempt. Not changed by the inconvenience, he lifted Ritsu again, and almost laughed at the tears and dirt on his face.

"Wow, I didn't think you were such a sissy…"

.

Something was wrong.

Mob felt it in the deepest, oldest, most frightening parts of himself. His hand slipped from the doorknob and the bag from his arm, and he could only stand in the quiet horror of his emotions for a moment. Strange tears welled in his eyes.

Ritsu.

Dimple.

Him.

A dull flash died in the graveyard. Mob's feet moved him, as well as his little heart, beating at a frantic speed that was almost too painful to think about. Such a desperate need drove him that he did not bother with the front gate: he used his powers to scale the fence, right over where Tome-san's grave remained. He reached the main path, towards the graveyard shrine, where Ritsu's schoolbag leaned against one of the arches and parts of the earth were cracked.

A man stood there. A man stood there holding Ritsu by the hair.

He held him like a swan with a broken neck. Tears and blood and dirt discolored his face, and all the man did was shake him, shake him by the hair until he cried out. The man growled at the noise, and Mob felt such a blind, terrible emotion that he did not realize he had grasped the man's arm until he did.

 **Anger.**

The man was forcefully spun. He met the eyes of another, and they held so much hatred that for the briefest second, he himself was terrified.

 _"Let my brother go."_

 _._

 **A/N:** I swear my standards for this fic just continue to drop as it gets closer to the end ;;


	21. Reckoning Day

**A/N:** Vore warning for this chapter, I guess? Someone is put halfway into a mouth, but not swallowed.

.

The man knocked Mob back with a sweep of his grabbed arm. Mob went skidding backwards down the path, and Ritsu inhaled sharply, his call high and half-choked.

"Nii-san!"

The man glanced between the two. Then, he grinned, and snatched Ritsu under his arm instead, placing both feet each edge of the path as Mob rose from the ground.

"So, it was the _younger_ one who's caused all the problems that drew our attention! Not you!" he decided. "I didn't know you both had psychic powers. I should have noticed by now! You haven't changed one bit."

He leaned forward, just enough for the tip of his nose to graze the light.

"You're the one that's interesting."

Wild blue lights shimmered around Mob. The coldest look ever imagined graced the entirety of his moon-like face: his eyes terrible dark craters that matched the desolation of his mood.

He held out his arm, and asked again.

 _"Let my brother go."_

Given half a chance, the man may have scoffed and dropped Ritsu right on his side, just for the fun of hearing him cry out and wither on the ground again. However, perhaps not learning from their previous encounter, his cockiness made him foolish, and he gave Mob the moment he needed to react.

Mob ripped Ritsu and the man apart. Ritsu hit the grassy area next to the path with a soft thud, while the man made a straight shot into the old graveyard maple tree. His head smashed into the trunk, and his body floundered limply. The release of such hostile psychic energy was enough to wake at least one of the spirits in the graveyard, but it did not matter to Mob that she went to investigate the man with distaste. What mattered was Ritsu, and the thought of being horrifying to him again soothed Mob's powers, so that when he reached him the light had disappeared totally.

"Ritsu! How badly did he hurt you?"

Ritsu struggled to decide how hurt he really was and turn over. His face was bashed up and his clothes sullied, but otherwise he seemed okay. He spat more dirt out of his mouth and forced himself upright, the movement causing a painful quirk in his twisted neck.

"Nii-san—No, I think I'm fine."

The woman spirit shrieked abruptly. Before she could warn Mob and Ritsu, the man had zipped back from the tree and grappled Mob by the face. His hood was off now, and both Mob and Ritsu could see his enraged expression: his beetle-like eyes, the long scar down his face, and the teeth that snarled in his mouth. Mob's powers ignited in a sudden fighting response, but this time the man was quicker, and he launched Mob into the air with an expert kick, leaving him winded and disarrayed.

"You need to stop causing me so much trouble!"

The man followed Mob into the air. Not having much else to hit him through, the man threw Mob towards the ground, sending him through the shrine roof and earth below.

.

Reigen did not see it. Reigen did not hear it. He felt it.

It was like the planet were lurched sideways—like a pachinko ball had been released from his heart and rolled down the rivets of his ribs to land coldly in his stomach. Reigen gripped the sides of the bathtub, and he half-expected to see a silver line of mercury running the length of his sternum when he looked down. Instead, he was met with only his diluted reflection in the water, his cheeks flushed although he did not feel feverish or embarrassed. Reigen sighed at his skittishness and relinquished his hold on the tub, left to wonder what the sensation had been and why he felt so odd.

.

 _Seal him. Seal him so he won't get out._

Prayer beads. Prayer beads and long robes, long robes going to—

 _He will never be free._

 _He could be, when fate decides a hero has come._

 _Or a villain._

Mob opened his eyes to the hot, blue sky. A jagged frame of broken pieces of earth and rock gave it a strange shape, and a strange mood as he lay there, amongst broke shards of… something. He thought to sit up, but a painful weight in his chest made him stop, and he had to cough air back into his lungs. Far too close for comfort, something slammed into the side of the hole, bits of rock showering from above. Someone who must have been the man made a strangling sound like he could not breathe.

"Oh, this is bad! This is very bad!"

That was not the man—but Serizawa. An evil hissing noise echoed from every part of the chamber, and Mob had to balance on his hands to look up: to see Serizawa, and what was so terrible.

It was like a snake with many heads—no, not many heads. Many faces. Faces that changed into horrific, grotesque things, like dead mothers and demons. It had its long and dark body wrapped around the man, who swore and pounded at its coiled body to no avail. Serizawa, however, had a hold around the base of what must have been its head like a mongoose preparing to break a cobra's neck. The thing hissed and beat its head around fitfully, trying with everything it had to rid its neck of Serizawa. It slammed into the wall again, and more dirt fell from the crumbling edges of the hole.

The thing twisted again, and Serizawa tumbled to the ground. He had no physical body, so he could not really be injured, but his form flickered, and the orange orb around his heart burned red. The thing struck at him with a face that had fangs, yet not fast enough to catch him before he disappeared into the ground. Not wasting a moment, the thing whipped back, taking the man into its large mouth.

Mob almost thought he was going to vomit as the noises stopped and the muscles around the thing's neck contracted. Although, when they did, it did not seem like the man himself was swallowed—rather, the red-brown aura of his powers ran towards the thing's center. It took only the briefest second, and then the thing pulled back: the man limp in its coils, but not eaten and not dead. No longer of any concern, the thing released the man from its hold. It slithered to its full height and now turned to Mob, it's face like that of a man with no eyes.

 _Foolish._

.

Mrs. Kageyama dried a dish with a cloth and tilted her head.

"What do you think Ritsu will want for dinner?"

Mr. Kageyama turned a page in his newspaper.

"Curry, maybe? We haven't had curry and rice for a while."

A silence fell. And in the silence, the dish slipped from Mrs. Kageyama's hands and shattered in the sink, like the heart that suddenly fell from her chest. She turned to her husband with a look of unbelievable horror, which he mirrored, and all they could do was stare for the longest time.

For reasons unknown to them, the memories of someone small and pale and very much theirs came to them. They remembered when he was his smallest—newborn in his blue blanket with a face like the full moon and lashes so dark they were like ink marks; they remember him afterwards, eating and playing and growing, and so fascinated when they came home with someone who was smaller. They remembered how one night they had tucked him into bed, and how in the morning he was gone, and how they had not questioned it—not even once. Not until now.

"… Oh my god." Mrs. Kageyama covered her mouth, and tears filled her eyes. "Oh my god… _Our baby."_

 _"Shigeo."_


	22. Questioning the Unquestionable

Mob could not move.

He could only stare into the eyes like sea chasms, where at any moment it seemed like something with a hundred teeth and bulging eyes would come up to haunt his nightmares forevermore. The thing slithered towards him slowly, hypnotically, it's hollow gaze never leaving his. Somewhere in the middle of it, Mob got the image of the man-like face with a body and long arms, reaching out towards his windpipe—

Serizawa burst from the ground and grabbed the thing by the tail. It hissed and whipped its body around, the trance broken and Mob suddenly aware of his thumping heart. He skittered back a foot, and his hand grazed the edge of a broken china vase, hard enough to slice the side of his finger. In that panic of unexpected pain, he found the motivation to stand, even as his legs shivered under him. He covered his bleeding hand with the palm of the other, more concerned by far with the thing and Serizawa and the safety of Ritsu.

 _Ritsu._

Mob snapped his head up to look outside the hole. There on the nearest edge he sat, the frightened whites of his eyes visible even from so far away, and contrasted so harshly with the color of his blood. They caught each other's eyes, and for a second neither moved, Ritsu breaking it by mouthing a single word—not unwise enough to call out verbally.

"Nii-san."

Again, that feeling came to Mob: again, he felt the responsibility of being the older brother, of keeping Ritsu away from harm. And again, he felt that cold uncertainty of whether he could provide it; of whether he could be a good big brother and ensure Ritsu and himself would be safe after it was all over. It was part of the burden he chose to accept.

Mob did not know how to reply, so he mouthed back the only words that came to him.

"I'm sorry."

The thing flung Serizawa away by the force of its tail. It saw Mob staring up, and in return it saw Ritsu by the edge of the hole, who jerked away far too late. What might have been a grin twisted its face.

 _A vessel._

.

Mrs. Kageyama went first up the ladder, with Mr. Kageyama close behind.

They stood together in the attic, the bare bulb above casting muted white light over their faces. Mrs. Kageyama went for the boxes by the ladder, pushing away candles whose glass chimed together and picture frames that shifted and settled. She dug until she found a bag strap: dusty with years of being forgotten and neglected. She tugged, and the rest of the book bag slipped out, as yellow as Ritsu had described it so long ago. She turned it over and found the name tag, written on with faded black ink.

 _Shigeo Kageyama_

Mrs. Kageyama did not try to stop the tears that kaleidoscoped her vison. She drew the book bag in close, like it was a baby, _her baby_ , and looked back to her husband crouching behind her.

"This is it… This was Shigeo's."

.

Reigen stared at his complexion in the bathroom mirror, and he took the thermometer out of his mouth when it beeped, his temperature reading as normal. His mouth pinched at the corner. He wondered if it was wrong and he should try again.

The feeling of unsettledness—of sickness, perhaps, or something similar—had not left. It half felt like he was coming down with a cold or a headache, and half felt like the resulting fear of a horror movie jump scare. Reigen cleared the numbers on the thermometer and waved in back in forth, thinking maybe the rush of cooler air would trick it into reading his body temperature better. He popped it back into his mouth and continued to gaze at his reflection as if it could give him an answer.

The house tremored. Reigen nearly inhaled and choked on the stick thermometer, saved only by his lost balance causing it to tumble into the sink basin instead. For a moment, he fretted over it being an earthquake, but the wisdom of past experiences told him that was probably not the case. And the latter option was much more frightening.

It meant something was wrong with Mob.

.

Mob did not think. He acted.

He lifted his arm, and the thing slammed into the earthen wall. It gave a cry and flailed like it had been stepped on. If he had been in a different mindset, Mob may have been surprised that it still had the power to move while he held it against the wall, but it was no matter as long as it did not get anywhere near Ritsu.

Mob felt all his nerves burn and spasm.

 **Protectiveness.**

"Serizawa," Mob spoke to the spirit in a voice as dark as the sky before a storm. "Get Ritsu out of here."

"Are you sure?" Serizawa sounded out of breath although he could not breathe. "I can still— "

One word: one definitive, unquestionable word.

"Go."

Serizawa's composure wilted, and he knew. He left Mob with the thing struggling against its captor. He rose from the ground for the first time in over a decade, the sunlight harsh and the graveyard lawn too green, but his eyes long since unable to feel light-blindness or pain. He found Ritsu backed against a gravestone, his body hunched in preparation for whatever he thought was going to come after him.

Serizawa extended a friendly hand. "Your brother wants you to leave."

Before Ritsu could answer, the graveyard gates rattled open.

.

Mob was not in his bedroom. He was not in the living room, or the kitchen, or anywhere Reigen would have expected him to go when he got home from his outing with Tome. That left only one place for him to be, and Reigen cursed himself for not assuming he would be in the graveyard in the first place. He shoved on a pair of shoes and rushed out the door, nearly tripping over the shopping bag Mob had abandoned there.

That was the next warning sign. The last was the missing shrine.

It was gone: gone as if it had never been. Reigen saw very clearly the empty sky and ground where the shrine was meant to be, where it had been ever since he could remember, and long before even that. The gate to the graveyard had its doors closed like they were not supposed to be. Reigen pushed them open violently, the metal doors making a shattering sound as they crashed into the fence on either side.

He had a lot to see.

Closer now, he saw the gaping hole in the ground that had collapsed the shrine. Odd movements and sounds and flashes of light came from the hole, and another vibration in the ground loosened clumps of dirt from the edges. Near the opening, Ritsu, face bloody and dirty, had smushed himself against a gravestone, and over him stood—

There was absolutely no proper way Reigen could say his name. But, he managed somehow to spout:

" _Katsuya?"_

Or: almost Katsuya. Reigen had never actually seen a ghost before, but he assumed this is what they would look like: unaged from death, pale, almost-transparent. Serizawa appeared like he winced, his gaze turning from Ritsu, and his hand still out in offering. Reigen saw in his eyes that sad look of his he would always remember, because Serizawa had a face that hid nothing, and Reigen found that so fascinating. Serizawa's head dipped, and his voice came out softly.

"Oh… Arataka."

No matter how much he wanted to, there was not the time for heartfelt greetings. Reigen hastened down the path towards them, waving his arms urgently.

"Where's Mob?"

Now grief fell Serizawa's face. He didn't know what to say, or rather what he should. Mob had asked him to watch after his brother, but now Reigen was here, concerned and hurt and also in danger. Reigen approached him, and he knew he had to say something, and his reply tumbled out like falling dinnerware.

"The thing under the shrine… He's with the evil spirit that escaped."

Reigen froze in his tracks. A frustrated sort of confusion played with his features, and the orb near Serizawa's heart dimmed considerably. He knew he wasn't much help.

Finally, Ritsu found his nerve and forced his body into action. He stood from the ground by his own accord. He looked to Reigen with a cold disposition not really meant for or directed at him; more one that naturally came out of his resistance to act distressed any longer. He answered what Reigen really wanted to know.

"He's in the hole."

Reigen nodded once, firmly. He immediately went that direction, and Serizawa panicked, reaching out for him far too late.

"Arataka, no!"

He saw.

He saw down the entrance of the hole: saw the broken wood, the arches, saw the shattered vase and the man lying motionless beside it. He saw the basin of the water fountain and the mud of the spilled water. He saw the once proud stairs cracked into mere blocks of stone.

And he saw Mob, his arms ripping apart the jaws of a great snake.

The thing screamed in agony. It could not move enough to strike out—its body pinned to the wall, and its head caught in Mob's vicious grip. Malicious swarms of light pulled it in every direction, seeming keen on tearing the thing apart down the center. An utterly wrathful expression twisted Mob's face into something awful and mean: something not wholly himself, something not fitting of someone so sweet and forgiving and wanting to change. The witness of such unbridled violence in Mob made something unknown strike out in Reigen, and he leaned forward and called down.

"Mob!"

It was like the day he decided to take Mob home. He had an instinct to protect him.

Mob paused. The evil lights, for a moment, softened, and floated away from the thing, back to the aura close to Mob. His hands weakened their hold, and his shoulders relaxed, his head turning to look up at Reigen.

The anger he showed in his actions had been replaced by an odd and gentle need, or fear, like a child feeling their way in the dark for the safety of their parent's bedroom. Reigen thought at that moment that Mob looked like the little boy he had been once, playing with spirits through the graveyard fence and sitting on a wooden bench as he still held the hope of his parents coming to find him in the morning.

His voice was like what someone's heart might sound like.

"Shishou…"

The thing hissed and ripped away from Mob's hands. It struck out from the wall and closed its jaws around Mob's upper body.

.

 **A/N:** It's so weird having Reigen and Serizawa call each other by their first names, but they were friend-os in school.


	23. Door Locks

**A/N:** The Inugawa VS Inukawa debate got me like

.

Mob remembered, once, watching a video in elementary school about sea life. He remembered sitting there with his classmates when the part about the cuttlefish came on. He remembered how the cuttlefish darted at the crab near the camera lens, and how in graphic proximity he saw the tentacles snatch and the mouth devour the creature. He had wondered if the cuttlefish were any bigger or he any smaller if it would do that to him: wrap him in tentacles and eat him.

The thing did something like that.

Mob had the sensation that he was in dark water, with wet limbs raking at his body. He fought to pull back, but their hold was strong, and Mob had no choice but to go forward. He could not even see the light from bursts of his reacting psychic powers, and that was the most frightening thing. He could feel the very essence of them trying to be stripped from his innermost being and could do nothing to stop it.

Until he was jerked forward another centimeter. Bright white blinded his vision, and he tumbled out of wherever he was, onto a hard floor and followed by a string of goop. The tight feeling from being compressed caused Mob to cough violently, and he lifted himself onto his knees and away from the puddle of slime pooling around him. He looked up before it would make him sick.

The room looked like it was almost made of white plastic, with shadows in odd places and the corners like the seams on bleach bottles. It had no ceiling to speak of, and no light source to explain the white.

There was just a man, sitting cross-legged and leaning on his elbow.

He stared at Mob without the slightest indication of self-consciousness. He looked very young and very tired, with bags under his eyes like he spent too much time at night stressing over the coming day. He had dark hair, and a dark indigo robe, similar to what a government official would wear in past times.

"How interesting."

He spoke but two words, in a rough and drained voice. He stood with ghostly fluidity and approached Mob, leaning down to look at his face closer. He reached out to touch his forehead, and Mob shuddered back in response. The man blinked, then scowled, the sound like a hiss. Mob shivered.

"There's no need for that. It's not like I'm going to _kill_ you," he said as if it justified anything. "Now, keep still."

He tried again, and again Mob jerked away. The man's eyebrows furrowed, and he grasped Mob's chin this time, a red glow humming about his body. Mob twisted in his hold as the man covered his face with his other hand, the red aura hot against his skin. Mob clutched at his wrists to pull them away to no avail, his fingernails clawing into his skin, but the man not bothered by the pain at all. A spasm of Mob's powers lashed out, and finally they man pulled away, sitting on his haunches as Mob skittered back, almost slipping in the puddle of slime in his retreat.

The man tilted his head and pointed out his finger. "Somehow, you have a lock on your psychic powers. Something is keeping them in."

He did not expound. Mob could only stare until his heart stopped fluttering, and even then it did not stop completely. He had to muster some courage to pull himself up and speak without his words being a whisper.

"Who are you?"

The man touched his fingers to the liquid. "An evil spirit."

He did not look like an evil spirit. Mob opened his mouth, but closed it and shook his head, not speaking that observation in the end.

"No, I did not ask _what_ you are… I asked _who_ you are."

The man narrowed his eyes in suspicion, or perhaps in warning. He lifted his fingers from the puddle to rest his arm sidelong on his knee.

"It's not important," he replied. "You wouldn't know, anyway."

A beat. A memory of a conversation. Then:

"Are you Keiji Mogami?"

Suddenly, his expression of mild interest morphed into an absolutely wrathful visage. He shot upright, much like a striking snake, and stalked towards Mob: a cobra with its hood opened.

"So you do know," he practically accused while glowering over Mob, who wanted to shrink under such hostility, but held firm. "I thought I would be forgotten by now."

Spirits experience long periods of existence, and little did Mogami—who was once human—know that their memories lasted just as long. He bowed over and grasped Mob's shoulders, and Mob choked as he squeezed near his throat.

"Stop protecting your powers. Or, I can force them out of you. It makes no difference to me."

Mob tried withering out of his grip, but he held steady, and clutched harder as he struggled, like a bird caught by a boa constructor. Mob felt his collar bone ache as Mogami's fingers pressed into his flesh, and his breathing came in short, fearful chirps. Yet, he managed to speak a single word.

"Why?"

Mogami gave Mob a look of disgust of having to excuse something so simple to someone so naïve. He tsked like he wanted to spit. His grip tightened.

"I'm an evil spirit. I need your powers to grow stronger."

Why did he keep saying that? It was like he had to assure himself that it was something he really was, or convince Mob that he would not hold sympathies. He wanted Mob's powers for reasons the boy could not understand, and that created new fear that motivated Mob to fight against the vice grip again. The look of rage returned, and Mogami lurched Mob up by the shoulders towards his face.

"I've seen you use them," he growled. "You're not doing anything trying to fight me like this."

Mob stared into his eyes. They were much like Reigen's in they were dark brown and seemed easy to change with the light. Only, instead of kindness they held anger, and old sorrow: some wound he had not sorted out with himself quite yet. They did not soften, not even for a moment, but maybe used to and held the memory of so, from long ago when he did not have to think he was an evil spirit.

Mob knew.

"Oh…" he said with such softness that Mogami flinched. "I see. You made this room. You locked the door yourself."

There was not a hesitation: not a moment for his heart to feel the words. Mogami slammed Mob back onto the ground and clenched his fingers around his windpipe. Mob's last bit of air came out as a cry, and Mogami squeezed harder—squeezed until Mob could not speak. He wrung and shook his neck without even the thought of restraint, Mob's head smacking against the floor and tears jostled from his eyes.

"Let your powers out!" Mogami shouted in the empty echo of the room. " _Do it!"_

His head hurt, and he could not breathe, and his eyes would not see right, but Mob knew the innermost part where his powers came from, and he kept his hold on them despite the demands. It was the last thing he could do, he realized. All he had was his will to change, to not be violent, and that included not letting another do what they wished with what he had.

His psychic powers were his responsibility. He could not allow them in the hands of those he could not trust.

Yet… it was happening again: he felt himself slipping into blackness, and if he finally let go, he knew all his struggling would be over. In his unconscious state, it would come, like a demonic bird, and cause devastation no one could control. It would lash out with animalistic instincts—a pure need for survival—and destroy everything in its way until it thought it was safe. It had done it before, and that knowledge kept Mob fighting, his mind just above the line of his dark subconscious. He felt the hot conflict of Mogami's aura as it tried to reach into him, searching for the center of his powers while he was weak. Mob tucked them far into himself, hoping with all hopes that he would not find them, that Mogami would not awaken the thing he so desired to meet. Mob heard the man hiss as it still alluded him, his blood-colored psychic powers roaring about him like an inferno.

 _"Let them out, you idiot child!"_

And everything stopped.

Mob was yanked backwards, away from Mogami and through the darkness into the light of the blue sky. He gasped, and his lungs clawed at the air, his eyesight flickering no more and his heartbeat no longer in his throat and feeling returning to his limbs. He felt the slime still on his clothing and the hold around his waist, and how the person pulling him away stumbled backwards under his weight. Mob had no real doubt about who it was, but nevertheless a sense of peace came when he called to him, his head an outline against the sky.

"Mob! _Mob, speak to me!"_

Reigen looked so worried for him. Mob blinked against the harsh daylight, and he clutched at Reigen's clothing to steady himself, still dizzy from what he had endured. The saliva made his finger's slick, and he almost lost his grip, but determination got the better of him, and that helped his balance to level and breathing to calm. He turned his gaze wholly to the comfort of Reigen's kind brown eyes, and spoke like he asked him to.

"Shishou..."

.

Mrs. Kageyama covered her mouth.

"Darling! Here!"

Mr. Kageyama pushed aside the hundreds of other photos. He leaned over his wife's shoulder to see the one she held.

It showed Ritsu as a newborn, on the couch leaning against his older brother. Unlike Ritsu, his features had fixed into something recognizable, with a certain nose shape and round haircut setting his appearance. Mrs. Kageyama almost dropped the photo, she trembled so. She looked to her husband, ready to cry again.

Her voice hardly came out.

"Shigeo… I… I know where he is."


	24. New Doors

**A/N:** Now that midterms are over...

.

Serizawa: noble Serizawa.

When Reigen dove headfirst into the hole, he had the mind to save him first, and panic after. He used his telekinesis to lighten Reigen's landing, then went to yelling at him as he ran right for the thing with Mob in its mouth. Reigen rived Mob away from the thing with all his strength, and Ritsu shivered and bit back the bitter taste in his mouth as slime dripped from Mob and the thing withered lamely to the ground. Ritsu and Serizawa heard Reigen speak, and saw Mob move weakly—the action earning a pause of relief from all in the vicinity. Mob said something quietly, and Reigen gripped him even closer, despite the painful strain in his shoulders and the goop sliding down his arms.

He was okay, at least for the moment.

Only, the thing found the motivation to pull itself upright. Serizawa also had the instinct to instantly know they were in trouble again, and he pushed off the edge into the hole. He landed along the side and Ritsu made to duck back before the thing lifted up and slithered forward, its now bug-like eyes searing into Mob and Reigen with the utmost anger. Serizawa lurched forward to meet the thing moving with malice, until:

"Stop!"

To everyone's surprise, the thing did stop.

Serizawa froze as well, boxed in half by confusion and half by the word itself. Reigen cleared his throat—the command maybe a little to brave for how he actually felt—and stood up straighter although the weight of Mob leaned him a little to one side. He stared into the thing's eyes with a steely determination that awed Serizawa.

And Mob, who blinked at Reigen like he was the very sun.

"You are going after _children."_

The thing tilted its head to the side. Reigen almost faltered under the image of childlike innocence played out by something so horrendous, but cleared his throat again, and spoke to make his point.

"You are fighting a _literal child."_ Reigen glanced briefly down at the limp boy in his arms. "Look—I assume you were trapped by the shrine for a long time, and I know how terrible that must have been, but that's no excuse to threaten a child!"

Mob gazed between the thing and Reigen. He could feel Reigen struggling under him, but his voice did not reflect this, and his words echoed so that even Ritsu could hear them clearly.

"You already took all the fight out of him! And you're still coming after him while he's weak!"

The thing did not seem to make an expression. It lowed its head so its eyes would be level with Reigen's, the look of them now like red and cat-like.

 _I am an evil spirit. I need his power to grow stronger. You have nothing to give me._

The voice came out of everywhere, more like a twist of wind in Reigen's ear than human speech. Reigen may have wanted to let his face fall as he quickly realized his wisdom meant nothing to the thing so consumed by its own fantasies, but instead his mouth set into a hard line. His eyes did not drop.

His voice was darker than Mob had ever heard.

"You are not as like them as you think. Otherwise, I would not have been able to stop you with a single word."

The thing released a loud hiss, proven wrong for a second time that day. Its face changed into something like a real snake, with poisoned teeth and a jaw that hung to show the hollow dark of its insides. It whipped forward, and Serizawa was nearly as quick, reaching Reigen and Mob seconds before the thing did, right as Mob held out his hand and—

The thing crashed into an energy barrier. Its crushed face shattered into something blank and unidentifiable, and it jerked back with a high shriek of pain. His momentum already fulfilled, Serizawa stood to Reigen's immediate side, and he caught his look of disbelief as Mob slipped lightly from his hold and stood before them without even the slightest memory of his previous weakness. Neither could see his face, but they could see his powers all about him, like a pair of blue and gold bird wings. The thing thwacked its tail against the barrier, and it did not shudder—nor did Mob. He simply held up his other hand.

"I'm tired of ending things with violence."

Mob walked forward, and Reigen would not realize until much later that he could have stopped him: that he could have taken Mob's shoulder and insisted that maybe it would be better to run away, that he was a child and it was not his responsibility to defeat the evil of the world. Rather, now, in the short moment of Mob stepping towards the thing ready to swallow him and nothing making sense for reasons Reigen could not hope to fathom, he watched Mob take the thing by the jaw and lower it until their eyes met and the thing stopped moving.

And Reigen was reminded of the night they first met.

Reigen was reminded of the tiny boy so sweet he would never understand why the universe was so cruel to him: why it forced him to look through graveyard fences when he wished so desperately to know what was on the inside and why there was a gate to separate the lawn into two parts in the first place. Reigen remembered his little ghostly laugh, from when Mob figured it did not matter much why and he would know someday. And Reigen remembered how that had all changed, how he had watched Mob throughout his years walk through the many doorways of life and learn much of what it meant to be himself in a world of so many perceptions and emotions that at in the end Reigen could not be of any service to him. Mob's experiences were his own, and he had to find the keys to doors himself.

Reigen had to tear his gaze away from Mob staring into the thing's eyes, although it hurt him ever so. Tears constricted his throat, from joy or sadness he didn't know.

Mob had changed. He had grown up.

.

"It's time to go."

The white room flickered. Mogami released a low hiss, backed in the corner like he was prepared to fight for his life. Mob did not advance, but he also did not falter, and that left Mogami as the only frightened one in the room of his own creation. This knowledge caused Mogami's powers to lash out—red whips flailing against the blue shimmer around Mob. When he realized they did nothing, he hissed again and spoke his defiance.

"I won't."

Mob did not become harsh. Instead, he lowered his powers, until his hair settled to his head and no light changed the look of his eyes.

"Do you want to stay in this room forever? Is that what you planned?"

Mogami's gaze did not soften, but a shadow of question colored his eyes, and maybe that could turn to softness with enough prompting. Mob held the hem of his shirt in his fingers, suddenly shy in the wake of everything.

"I feel… like you have already experienced the greatest loss you ever will," Mob said gently. "That you have trouble moving on, or something like that. You continue existing just for the sake of doing so, and you shouldn't want that. You shouldn't keep yourself trapped here."

A memory, a phrase:

"This world is for the living. It is not for the dead."

Mogami's eyebrows relaxed from their pinched expression. He uncurled from the corner slowly, sitting up much like he had when Mob first saw him. His hands rested on his legs, and he looked pensive, like he really was considering what Mob said. Like he was trying to decide if the hope was worth it.

"So what you are saying…" he said, his words low and secretive like river currents. "Is that I should move on?"

"It may be best," Mob replied with such natural kindness that there was no doubt. "Open another doorway. Give yourself a better chance at being able to change."

Perhaps. Mogami frowned, then sighed, remembering some of what it had been like to breathe—to live—and how he did nothing like that now. He stared at his hands and paused for a long moment, waiting for exactly the right time and place.

"It would be a risk… But I suppose it is time."

.

Reigen was glad he looked away, for the light nearly blinded him.

The thing exploded into thousands of crystal-like lights—something like the wild burst of an exorcism, although very much unlike it. Mob raised his hands from their position around the once-face as the orbs moved as one, ascending into the sky like bubbles in the sunlight. His mouth parted, in mesmerized awe, and he watched until the orbs disappeared into the clouds and the show of lights no longer reflected in his eyes. No part of him moved, and he may have remained like that forever, if:

Reigen, contrastingly, had one concern.

"Mob!"

Mob blinked awake from the image. Whatever lingering prickle of fear or misunderstanding he had disappeared, and he moved to turn around just as Reigen crashed into his body, his arms enveloping his entire head in near suffocation.

"What did you do?" Reigen cried—maybe not the best way to greet Mob, but it was what first came to mind.

"I… asked him to leave," Mob said in the short span of one taken breath.

"Just like that?" Serizawa asked from slightly behind. "You asked him to leave, and he did?"

"Well— "

"I was so _worried,"_ Reigen did not mean to interrupt, but his squeezing caused Mob to choke on his words. "I felt the house shake, and I ran over here to find you in danger, and all I could think to do was—I mean, I wanted to help, and I wanted to tell you sooner, but now is high time I told you I'm not— "

"Shishou." In the span of his rant, Mob managed to wiggle his mouth out of Reigen's bicep. "You did a lot. You stopped him in your own way, and that helped me realize how to do what is right. You are a good person. That is better than having psychic powers… Tome-san told me a long time ago."

Reigen flushed brightly at the knowledge that Mob knew he was not a psychic for years and still played along with it. (Why didn't he realize his grandmother would have said something about it earlier?). "Oh, right… I— "

"Nii-san?"

Mob jolted his head upwards. Ritsu poked his head over the edge: still frightened, but also relieved. A new emotion flared in Mob.

"Ritsu!"

Reigen yelped as Mob floated them both to the surface, releasing him as soon as they touched the ground. Mob rushed towards Ritsu, who was a little taken aback by how quickly he moved, but forgot all of that as soon as his brother held him close. The reality of that—of them both being safe, of being _able_ to hug—got to him, and fresh tears lingered in his eyes.

It was hard to believe how jealous he had been.

"Nii-san…" Ritsu repeated, a noticeable strain in his voice. "I'm so glad you're okay! I thought the man, then the snake, that they were— "

"I'm fine, Ritsu," Mob soothed his little brother, and that allowed time for Ritsu's tears to start to fall. "It's not your fault. It was my job to do something."

Ritsu shut his eyes, knowing little of how Mob felt in his responsibility as the older brother. He simply gripped Mob tighter, the tears and blood and dirt and saliva uncared for on Mob's shoulder.

"I love you, Nii-san."

Mob went as still as any could be, struck by the intensity and heart Ritsu openly gave him in his words. Mob's insides grew warm, and he felt the full force of the emotion waiting to come forth.

 **Acceptance.**

.

The boy with red hair stood on the roof of the house.

He grinned as the two boys with dark hair embraced, and the spirit and older man jumped back as pink colors shimmered around the two. The recovery of the unconscious man from the hole had gone unnoticed, and he grinned wider, the slice of teeth the only thing left as he faded away with the man, much like a Cheshire Cat.

He was sure he would be seeing those two again.


	25. Home (Epilogue)

**A/N:** One regret writing this: fic title is too long.

.

"Shige! Get up, you're going to be late!"

Mob sat up in his futon, blinking against the daylight. He yawned and pushed the blanket down.

"I think your mom wants to make you a big meal before school," Dimple appeared in the hallway as Mob walked towards the bathroom. "She has this whole giant thing going on in the kitchen!"

Mob nodded to show he understood. He brushed his teeth and returned to his room to retrieve his uniform from the closet. He finished dressing just as his phone rang, and he answered to find it was Reigen.

"Hey, Mob!" Reigen said cheerfully from the other end. "Mom and I wanted to wish you good luck on your first day!—well, of second year, at least."

"Thank you, Shishou," Mob replied as he heard Reigen's mother yelling 'Good luck, Mob-kun!' in the background and making kissing noises. "Is the move into your new apartment going well?"

"Yeah, the last box came in yesterday!" Reigen confirmed. "The last of the blinds and drapes—nothing important. Serizawa went over to the graveyard today to see if the new house tenants are doing okay, and to see if the shrine he pieced back together is holding up. Also, a new office space opened up, so I'm going to go check it out this afternoon. Hopefully, we can use it as the new consultation office and start working again soon."

"I'm sure you'll find something, Shishou."

"Oh—and tell Ritsu good luck on his first day of middle school!"

Mob said he would and hung up after a minute more of chatting. Dimple eyed him as he packed his bag for the day.

"I don't know why you still put up with him," Dimple sighed. "I mean, you're with your real family now! You don't need him anymore."

Mob paused. He stared at the books and folders in his bag, considering a reply.

"He raised me for most of my life," he said at last. "I don't want to cut ties with him. The least I can do is help him, and in turn help others."

Dimple sighed again and shook his head—or, rather, his whole body. Mob finished preparing his bag and went downstairs, where Ritsu just put his school bag over his chair at the table and sat down.

"Shishou wanted to wish you good luck on your first day," Mob said to him as he did the same. Ritsu tilted his head.

"Oh? That's nice of him."

Their mother came from the kitchen, a platter of rice bowls in her hands. She set them at each place at the table, and put the various condiments and sauces in the center.

"The eggs will be done in a moment." She leaned back from the table, and looked to Mob and Ritsu with determination. "You two need to eat well! You have a big day today."

Mob offered a small smile in return. His mother seemed to melt: purely by the fact that he was there and chose to smile at her. She hurried back in the kitchen to prepare the rest of the meal. Ritsu excused himself to go and collect their father, and that left Mob alone at the table, staring at his mother's back as she fried the eggs in the pan.

And it was nice.

Not that he disliked living with Reigen or that part of his life wasn't nice: this was different, but in a good way. He felt like he belonged the moment he walked through the doorway he missed the first time—felt the hope, felt what maybe Ritsu felt when he met Mob and knew in some part of himself that they _were_ brothers. It was similar to what he felt when he walked through the graveyard gate or into the house, where Tome-san or Reigen would be waiting with open arms.

"Shige?" His mother faced away from the stove to look at him. "Are you alright? You look a little lost in thought."

Mob smiled again and nodded his head. He was where he was meant to be. He was home.

.

 **A/N:** And that's it, folks! Thank you so much for reading! I may do snippet stories for this fic in the future (how the graveyard house came to be, how Reigen and Serizawa met, etc.), so if you want to request a story, feel free to do so on my tumblr ( thejapanesemapletree)!


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